Re: [gentoo-dev] About tests needing internet connection to run

[Michał Górny]

On Sat, 7 Jul 2012 17:46:49 -0400
Alexandre Rostovtsev <tetromino@g.o> wrote:

> On Sat, Jul 7, 2012 at 11:21 AM, Michał Górny <mgorny@g.o>
> wrote:
> > To be honest, I think the first thing to do would be fixing the test
> > suites to skip tests which fail due to internet connection being
> > unavailable. Well, there would still be question how to reliably
> > determine that...
>
> For some packages, e.g. geocode-glib, which is basically a library for
> calling a particular web service from C code, running the test suite
> without network access is almost pointless. (Unless, of course, you
> feel like implementing a clone of that web service just to run the
> test suite.)
>
> I don't like tests that need network access, but in a few cases, they
> are the only to automatically verify that a package works.

And 'skipped' tests simply mean that the test suite was unable to
verify whether the package works for one reason or another. Well, other
than build-time failures and a few possible runtime failures.

You just have to ensure that it correctly notices the difference
between 'no internet' and 'no matching API there'. Probably the domain
resolution failure should be the borderline.

Well, and I don't really mind having PROPERTIES about it. Some users
may actually want to know that tests could do better with internet
access.

-- 
Best regards,
Michał Górny