Re: External Dependencies

Stefan Neufeind wrote:

On Tue, 29 Jun 2004 at 14:47:04, Helgi Þormar wrote:

On Tue, 2004-06-29 at 12:40, Stefan Neufeind wrote:

On Tue, 29 Jun 2004 at 14:36:01, Jon Wood wrote:

I'm currently developing a new version of Auth_PrefManager, and want to include a test suite based on SimpleTest (simpletest.sourceforge.net), since it's more mature than PHPUnit. What's the policy on external dependencies - should they be included in CVS and with the package, or should anyone who wants to run the test suite have to install it themselves?

Imho we should not divert unit-tests among too many unit-testing-frameworks. Are your testcases really unsolveable with PHPUnit? Have you checked back with Sebastian, maybe had a look at the extended PHPUnit2 (php5 only!) etc.? External dependencies are (not yet) possible. You could add external dependencies as soon as channel-support is available - but I think we agreed that PEAR-packages should not have any external dependencies. So if simpletest really has further advantages over PHPUnit or anything, imho it would be best to provide basic PHPUnit-tests and have a separate directory that explains where to get simpletest from and holds test-files to run with that testing-framework. PS: Please note I don't know too much details about SimpleTest yet ...

There are couple of pear packages using simpletest, and also this there is nothing wrong with using none pear testing frameworks :) Like I said in the other email, just make a readme and explain what's needed and where to get it. Stefan also this providing basic PHPUnit tests AND have simple test for more advanced testing... well is just too much of a work really, since the learning curve is maybe to much for one person to handle ;) So IMO we should allow people to use external testing framework if they like, they just have to provide a readme with some hints where to get the testing framework and such :) Sometimes we have to lossen the leach a little :) (hope it's rightly worded ;))

I understand your thoughts. However how does the demand for unit-tests ("every stable package needs unit-tests, every beta-package should have") go together with using any unit-testing-framework? Afaik currently there are phpt and PHPUnit-tests widely used throughout PEAR. If everybody uses the framework he likes, because maybe he simply didn't bother taking the look at the available solution or anything (not to accuse anybody) then don't we make it too difficult for users to actually run unit-tests? Imho it should be as easy as possible to grab a package and run the tests. What if I have to install a framework, that I even can't install using the PEAR-installer, just for running tests? I'm unsure this would be a good solution.

I also understand each of your thoughts. Some day we may efvfen do automatic unit testing etc. So sticking with our pear solution would be preferable. Then again alot of people do claim that simpletest beats phpunit on php4. So I would say lets not make writing tests more of an hassle then it needs to be. I doubt people will find phpunit2 lacking however so i think for php5 only packages people should go with that. so i would say if there is anything significant missing for your target platform from either phpt or phpunit go head and use some external tool. but dont include it in the package tgz. regards, Lukas Smith smith@backendmedia.com _______________________________ BackendMedia www.backendmedia.com berlin@backendmedia.com Linn Zwoch Smith GbR Pariser Str. 44 D-10707 Berlin Tel +49 30 83 22 50 00 Fax +49 30 83 22 50 07