documentation/cvs-regression.sgml

   1   <chapter id="cvs-regression">
   2     <title>How to do regression testing using CVS</title>
   3
   4     <para>
   5       A problem that can happen sometimes is 'it used to work
   6       before, now it doesn't anymore...'. Here is a step by step
   7       procedure to try to pinpoint when the problem occurred. This is
   8       <emphasis>NOT</emphasis> for casual users.
   9     </para>
  10
  11     <orderedlist>
  12       <listitem>
  13         <para>
  14           Get the <quote>full CVS</quote> archive from winehq. This archive is
  15           the CVS tree but with the tags controlling the versioning
  16           system. It's a big file (> 40 meg) with a name like
  17           full-cvs-&lt;last update date> (it's more than 100mb
  18           when uncompressed, you can't very well do this with
  19           small, old computers or slow Internet connections).
  20         </para>
  21       </listitem>
  22       <listitem>
  23         <para>
  24           untar it into a repository directory:
  25           <screen>
  26 cd /home/gerard
  27 tar -zxf full-cvs-2003-08-18.tar.gz
  28 mv wine repository
  29           </screen>
  30         </para>
  31       </listitem>
  32       <listitem>
  33         <para>
  34           extract a new destination directory. This directory must
  35           not be in a subdirectory of the repository else
  36           <command>cvs</command> will think it's part of the
  37           repository and deny you an extraction in the repository:
  38           <screen>
  39 cd /home/gerard
  40 mv wine wine_current (-> this protects your current wine sandbox, if any)
  41 export CVSROOT=/home/gerard/repository
  42 cvs -d $CVSROOT checkout wine
  43           </screen>
  44         </para>
  45         <para>
  46           Note that it's not possible to do a checkout at a given
  47           date; you always do the checkout for the last date where
  48           the full-cvs-xxx snapshot was generated.
  49         </para>
  50         <para>
  51           Note also that it is possible to do all this with a direct
  52           CVS connection, of course. The full CVS file method is less
  53           painful for the WineHQ CVS server and probably a bit faster
  54           if you don't have a very good net connection.
  55         </para>
  56         <note>
  57           <para>
  58             If you use CVS directly from the winehq.org server, do not
  59             forget to add to your <filename>.cvsrc</filename> file:
  60           </para>
  61           <screen>
  62 cvs -z 3
  63 update -dPA
  64 diff -u
  65           </screen>
  66          </note>
  67       </listitem>
  68       <listitem>
  69         <para>
  70           you will have now in the <filename>~/wine</filename>
  71           directory an image of the CVS tree, on the client side.
  72           Now update this image to the date you want:
  73           <screen>
  74 cd /home/gerard/wine
  75 cvs -d $CVSROOT update -D "2002-06-01 CST"
  76           </screen>
  77         </para>
  78         <para>
  79           The date format is <literal>YYYY-MM-DD HH:MM:SS</literal>.
  80           Using the CST date format ensure that you will be able to
  81           extract patches in a way that will be compatible with the
  82           wine-cvs archive
  83           <ulink url="http://www.winehq.org/hypermail/wine-cvs">
  84           http://www.winehq.org/hypermail/wine-cvs</ulink>
  85         </para>
  86         <para>
  87           Many messages will inform you that more recent files have
  88           been deleted to set back the client cvs tree to the date
  89           you asked, for example:
  90           <screen>
  91 cvs update: tsx11/ts_xf86dga2.c is no longer in the repository
  92           </screen>
  93         </para>
  94         <para>
  95           <command>cvs update</command> is not limited to upgrade to
  96           a <emphasis>newer</emphasis> version as I have believed for
  97           far too long :-(
  98         </para>
  99       </listitem>
 100       <listitem>
 101         <para>
 102           Now proceed as for a normal update:
 103         </para>
 104         <screen>
 105 ./configure
 106 make depend && make
 107         </screen>
 108         <para>
 109           If any non-programmer reads this, the fastest method to get
 110           at the point where the problem occurred is to use a binary
 111           search, that is, if the problem occurred in 1999, start at
 112           mid-year, then is the problem is already here, back to 1st
 113           April, if not, to 1st October, and so on.
 114         </para>
 115         <para>
 116           If you have lot of hard disk free space (a full compile currently
 117           takes 400 Mb), copy the oldest known working version before
 118           updating it, it will save time if you need to go back. (it's
 119           better to <command>make distclean</command> before going back in
 120           time, so you have to make everything if you don't backup the older
 121           version)
 122         </para>
 123         <para>
 124           When you have found the day where the problem happened, continue
 125           the search using the wine-cvs archive (sorted by date) and a
 126           more precise cvs update including hour, minute, second :
 127           <screen>
 128 cvs -d $CVSROOT update -D "2002-06-01 15:17:25 CST"
 129           </screen>
 130           This will allow you to find easily the exact patch that did it.
 131         </para>
 132       </listitem>
 133       <listitem>
 134         <para>
 135           If you find the patch that is the cause of the problem, you have
 136           almost won; report about it to
 137           <ulink url="http://bugs.winehq.org/">Wine Bugzilla</ulink>
 138           or subscribe to wine-devel and post it there. There is a chance
 139           that the author
 140           will jump in to suggest a fix; or there is always the possibility
 141           to look hard at the patch until it is coerced to reveal where is
 142           the bug :-)
 143         </para>
 144       </listitem>
 145     </orderedlist>
 146   </chapter>
 147
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