Open Stack

[REPOSTING THIS REPLY]

Please let me know if others want to jump in the discussion on Quantum unit
tests

Hi Maru,

thanks for contributing to this topic.
More comments inline.


I was thinking of providing code samples during the summit session explaining
how existing tests could be refactored. If you can provide some samples it
would be great; also if you're ok with walking the audience through these
samples, that would be awesome!

Salvatore


On 4 April 2013 03:34, Maru Newby <marun at redhat.com> wrote:

> Hi Salvatore,
>
> I'm working on a patch to swap pep8 for flake8, which will increase the
> automation of mechanical review.  In the process of doing the cleanup
> required for the patch, I have seen some ways that quantum's test suite
> could be improved:
>
>  -  An api method and its serialization format (xml, json) are orthogonal
> (or should be) and could be tested as such.  For plugins that test both
> serialization formats for each api method, test execution time is
> effectively doubled with no benefit to coverage.
>

I totally agree. Once we get past the WSGI layer, there is not difference
between the JSON or the XML use case. The Serialization tests should just
validate data serialization and deserialization.


>
>  - Many plugins contain duplicate code and tests (e.g.
> get_port_from_device and its associated tests appear in each of the nec,
> openvswitch, ryu, and linuxbridge plugins).  Common code could be factored
> out and tested only once.
>

That's another good point that I wanted to address. It seems these tests have
the same coverage, so, as you say, they should be factored out in a test
module aimed at covering that specific functionality.


>
> - Many quantum tests evaluate low-level functionality through a web api
> rather than isolating the functionality under test.  Writing more focused
> unit tests (and fewer functional and integration tests ala
> http://www.martinfowler.com/bliki/TestPyramid.html) could allow for
> better coverage at a lower cost in both maintenance and execution.
>

This is the first goal of reworking our unit tests. We have always been
aware that those were not unit tests. However, those were the closest think
we could provide to a gatetests. Now that we have proper gate tests - we
should make sure our unit tests are proper unit tests! Also, it would be
good to discuss what to make of the current unit tests, which are probably
suitable for some sort of automated functional testing.


>
> The technical aspects of these potential improvements are straightforward,
> but will require a degree of developer and reviewer education to ensure
> that they are properly implemented and maintained going forward.  Do you
> think the summit session you've proposed would be an appropriate venue,
> or should it be done separately?
>

I think the summit session is just a starter. 'Education' should be
enforced via code reviews. The main goal of the summit session is achieve
consensus on the general direction, identify priorities, and possibly
resources.



>
> Cheers,
>
>
> Maru



On 3 April 2013 18:34, Maru Newby <marun at redhat.com> wrote:

> Hi Salvatore,
>
> I'm working on a patch to swap pep8 for flake8, which will increase the
> automation of mechanical review.  In the process of doing the cleanup
> required for the patch, I have seen some ways that quantum's test suite
> could be improved:
>
>  -  An api method and its serialization format (xml, json) are orthogonal
> (or should be) and could be tested as such.  For plugins that test both
> serialization formats for each api method, test execution time is
> effectively doubled with no benefit to coverage.
>
>  - Many plugins contain duplicate code and tests (e.g.
> get_port_from_device and its associated tests appear in each of the nec,
> openvswitch, ryu, and linuxbridge plugins).  Common code could be factored
> out and tested only once.
>
> - Many quantum tests evaluate low-level functionality through a web api
> rather than isolating the functionality under test.  Writing more focused
> unit tests (and fewer functional and integration tests ala
> http://www.martinfowler.com/bliki/TestPyramid.html) could allow for
> better coverage at a lower cost in both maintenance and execution.
>
> The technical aspects of these potential improvements are straightforward,
> but will require a degree of developer and reviewer education to ensure
> that they are properly implemented and maintained going forward.  Do you
> think the summit session you've proposed would be an appropriate venue, or
> should it be done separately?
>
> Cheers,
>
>
> Maru
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.openstack.org/pipermail/openstack-dev/attachments/20130411/173c121c/attachment.html>