From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 From: Bernt Hansen Subject: Re: How you can help Date: Thu, 23 Oct 2008 09:43:46 -0400 Message-ID: <878wsfpgtp.fsf@gollum.intra.norang.ca> References: <967CE7ED-05E9-4031-9F3B-CFB826511554@alexanderonline.org> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Return-path: Received: from mailman by lists.gnu.org with tmda-scanned (Exim 4.43) id 1Kt0Tp-0004RA-8d for emacs-orgmode@gnu.org; Thu, 23 Oct 2008 09:44:01 -0400 Received: from exim by lists.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.43) id 1Kt0Tn-0004ON-8O for emacs-orgmode@gnu.org; Thu, 23 Oct 2008 09:44:00 -0400 Received: from [199.232.76.173] (port=39804 helo=monty-python.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.43) id 1Kt0Tn-0004O9-1O for emacs-orgmode@gnu.org; Thu, 23 Oct 2008 09:43:59 -0400 Received: from mho-02-bos.mailhop.org ([63.208.196.179]:56557) by monty-python.gnu.org with esmtps (TLS-1.0:DHE_RSA_AES_256_CBC_SHA1:32) (Exim 4.60) (envelope-from ) id 1Kt0Tm-0004Al-RH for emacs-orgmode@gnu.org; Thu, 23 Oct 2008 09:43:59 -0400 In-Reply-To: <967CE7ED-05E9-4031-9F3B-CFB826511554@alexanderonline.org> (Ben Alexander's message of "Thu\, 23 Oct 2008 13\:04\:48 +0100") List-Id: "General discussions about Org-mode." List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Sender: emacs-orgmode-bounces+geo-emacs-orgmode=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Errors-To: emacs-orgmode-bounces+geo-emacs-orgmode=m.gmane.org@gnu.org To: Ben Alexander Cc: emacs-orgmode@gnu.org Ben Alexander writes: > Sebastian Rose wrote: >> 5. I also think of little packages for testing parts of org. > > I'm curious if you or someone else has any ideas for writing automated > tests for org-mode. I haven't the foggiest idea how someone would > write a test for the parts of org that control what is displayed on > the screen. I mean, when the bug is 'it doesn't look right' how can > you tell? > > Perhaps the git repository should have a small collection of small > org- > mode files that reproduce certain bugs? If there were some examples > of how to create such a test, then perhaps bug reporters would find it > much easier to create them. > > I do see some confusing issues due to different configuration files. > So creating a test file might involve making sure org-mode doesn't > read any configuration (how do you do that?) and possible asking org- > mode to extract all the configuration variables it has right now and > dump them into a test file (...and how do you do that?) Running a minimal emacs should suppress custom config files: emacs -q -l yourtest.el Some kind of regression testing framework would be awesome. Org-mode is large enough that this is almost a necessity to keep things stable and bug-free. Maybe something can be put together from the git testing framework and use of emacs -batch to process test org files and verify the output is as expected (with diff or some other tool). -Bernt