documentation/cvs-regression.sgml

   1   <chapter id="cvs-regression">
   2     <title>How to do regression testing using Cvs</title>
   3
   4     <para>
   5       written by Gerard Patel
   6     </para>
   7     <para>
   8       (Extracted from <filename>wine/documentation/bugreports</filename>)
   9     </para>
  10
  11     <para>
  12       A problem that can happen sometimes is 'it used to work
  13       before, now it doesn't anymore...'. Here is a step by step
  14       procedure to try to pinpoint when the problem occured. This is
  15       <emphasis>NOT</emphasis> for casual users.
  16     </para>
  17
  18     <orderedlist>
  19       <listitem>
  20         <para>
  21           Get the 'full cvs' archive from winehq. This archive is
  22           the cvs tree but with the tags controlling the versioning
  23           system. It's a big file (> 40 meg) with a name like
  24           wine-cvsdirs-&lt;last update date> (it's more than 100mb
  25           when uncompressed, you can't very well do this with
  26           small, old computers or slow Internet connections).
  27         </para>
  28       </listitem>
  29       <listitem>
  30         <para>
  31           untar it into a repository directory:
  32           <screen>
  33             cd /home/gerard
  34             tar -zxfcvs-dirs-2000-05-20.tar.gz
  35             mv wine repository
  36           </screen>
  37         </para>
  38       </listitem>
  39       <listitem>
  40         <para>
  41           extract a new destination directory. This directory must
  42           not be in a subdirectory of the repository else
  43           <command>cvs</command> will think it's part of the
  44           repository and deny you an extraction in the repository:
  45           <screen>
  46             cd /home/gerard
  47             mv wine wine_current (-> this protects your current wine sandbox, if any)
  48             export CVSROOT=/home/gerard/repository
  49             cd /home/gerard
  50             cvs -d $CVSROOT checkout wine
  51           </screen>
  52         </para>
  53         <para>
  54           Note that it's not possible to do a checkout at a given
  55           date; you always do the checkout for the last date where
  56           the wine-cvsdirs-xxx snapshot was generated.
  57         </para>
  58         <para>
  59           Note also that it is possible to do all this with a direct
  60           Cvs connection, of course. The full cvs file method is less
  61           painful for the winehq cvs server and probably a bit faster
  62           if you don't have a very good net connection.
  63         </para>
  64         <note>
  65           <para>
  66             If you use Cvs directly from the winehq.com server, do not
  67             forget to add to your <filename>.cvsrc</filename> file:
  68           </para>
  69           <screen>
  70             cvs -z 3
  71             update -dPA
  72             diff -u
  73           </screen>
  74          </note>
  75       </listitem>
  76       <listitem>
  77         <para>
  78           you will have now in the <filename>~/wine</filename>
  79           directory an image of the cvs tree, on the client side.
  80           Now update this image to the date you want:
  81           <screen>
  82             cd /home/gerard/wine
  83             cvs -d $CVSROOT update -D "1999-06-01 EDT"
  84           </screen>
  85         </para>
  86         <para>
  87           The date format is <literal>YYYY-MM-DD HH:MM:SS</literal>.
  88           Using the EDT date format ensure that you will be able to
  89           extract patches in a way that will be compatible with the
  90           wine-cvs archive : http://www.winehq.com/hypermail/wine-cvs
  91         </para>
  92         <para>
  93           Many messages will inform you that more recent files have
  94           been deleted to set back the client cvs tree to the date
  95           you asked, for example:
  96           <screen>
  97             cvs update: tsx11/ts_xf86dga2.c is no longer in the repository
  98           </screen>
  99         </para>
 100         <para>
 101           <command>cvs update</command> is not limited to upgrade to
 102           a <emphasis>newer</emphasis> version as I have believed for far too long :-(
 103         </para>
 104       </listitem>
 105       <listitem>
 106         <para>
 107           Now proceed as for a normal update:
 108         </para>
 109         <screen>
 110           ./configure
 111           make depend && make
 112         </screen>
 113         <para>
 114           If any non-programmer reads this, the fastest method to get
 115           at the point where the problem occured is to use a binary
 116           search, that is, if the problem occured in 1999, start at
 117           mid-year, then is the problem is already here, back to 1st
 118           April, if not, to 1st October, and so on.
 119         </para>
 120         <para>
 121           If you have lot of hard disk free space (a full compile takes
 122           currently 400 Mb), copy the oldest known working version before
 123           updating it, it will save time if you need to go back (it's
 124           better to make distclean before going back in time, so you
 125           have to make everything if you don't backup the older version)
 126         </para>
 127         <para>
 128           When you have found the day where the problem happened, continue
 129           the search using the wine-cvs archive (sorted by date) and a
 130           more precise cvs update including hour, minute, second :
 131           <screen>
 132             cvs -d $CVSROOT update -D "1999-06-01 15:17:25 EDT"
 133           </screen>
 134           This will allow you to find easily the exact patch that did it.
 135         </para>
 136       </listitem>
 137       <listitem>
 138         <para>
 139           If you find the patch that is the cause of the problem, you have
 140           almost won; report about it on <systemitem>comp.emulators.windows.wine</systemitem>
 141           or susbscribe to wine-devel and post it there. There is a chance that the author
 142           will jump in to suggest a fix; or there is always the possibility
 143           to look hard at the patch until it is coerced to reveal where is
 144           the bug :-)
 145         </para>
 146       </listitem>
 147     </orderedlist>
 148   </chapter>
 149
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