Testsuite questions

[Mike Stump]

> To: gcc@gcc.gnu.org
> Date: Tue, 21 Mar 2000 17:58:48 -0800
> From: " J S  Hammond" <jshammond@my-Deja.com>

> I finished porting gcc so that I can run C programs on our embedded
> system.  Through the process of writing and running programs we have
> been discovering the inevitable bugs.  I was hoping to find some C
> code that I could use to test the port and get a higher level of
> assurance that I have properly configured the gcc tools.  I figured
> that the testsuite would be the right place to look.

> I have been reading all the documentation I can find (which hasn't
> been much) on testsuite as well as examining the source and READMEs.
> I still have no idea how to use it.  A reference to more complete
> documentation or other help would be greatly appreciated.

Well, there is the dejagnu manual.  You should read it and be familiar
in general with it.  It is about 100 pages or so I thought.  Don't
bother memorizing too many details out of it, as I don't know that it
has beed updated to reflect what is now in dejagnu.


>From there, grab a linux box, or a solaris box, and run the testsuites
(gcc, g++, libio, libstdc++) natively.  Should be easy enough, but it
makes a good first step.  From there, you can start doing up
descriptions of your environment and plugging it into dejagnu, and
then start running.  You notice that you'll want a way for dejagnu to
reboot the target.  I'd recommend either a BSR style powercontroller
that connect to a serial port, or a APC unit.  If these are too much
money, then echo "please press reset now"; read /dev/tty will work,
but it might want to you press the button fify times in one run.
Anyway, you'll need to put this into dejagnu.  You'll need to figure
out a communications path to use (telnet, tip...) to get to the board,
and have your board file select it.  See all the various ones already
in there for ones close to what you want to do to copy from.  Read
through all the *.exp files in dejagnu to get a feel for it.

Anyway...  A little challenging, but if you are serious about testing,
it is well worth it.

And a final last plea, as you do this, it would be nice for you to
send in corrections to the documentation that you read, or at least
point out where things don't match, and try and get it updated.  Also,
where the documentation is thin, it would be excellent if you would
just write down what you did so the next person can have a little
easier time, and get that somehow included into dejagnu.

Anyway, I can answer specific questions as you have them.