[llvm-dev] [cfe-dev] RFC: End-to-end testing

[David Greene via llvm-dev]

Philip Reames via cfe-dev <cfe-dev at lists.llvm.org> writes:

> A challenge we already have - as in, I've broken these tests and had to 
> fix them - is that an end to end test which checks either IR or assembly 
> ends up being extraordinarily fragile.  Completely unrelated profitable 
> transforms create small differences which cause spurious test failures.  
> This is a very real issue today with the few end-to-end clang tests we 
> have, and I am extremely hesitant to expand those tests without giving 
> this workflow problem serious thought.  If we don't, this could bring 
> development on middle end transforms to a complete stop.  (Not kidding.)

Do you have a pointer to these tests?  We literally have tens of
thousands of end-to-end tests downstream and while some are fragile, the
vast majority are not.  A test that, for example, checks the entire
generated asm for a match is indeed very fragile.  A test that checks
whether a specific instruction/mnemonic was emitted is generally not, at
least in my experience.  End-to-end tests require some care in
construction.  I don't think update_llc_test_checks.py-type operation is
desirable.

Still, you raise a valid point and I think present some good options
below.

> A couple of approaches we could consider:
>
>  1. Simply restrict end to end tests to crash/assert cases.  (i.e. no
>     property of the generated code is checked, other than that it is
>     generated)  This isn't as restrictive as it sounds when combined
>     w/coverage guided fuzzer corpuses.

I would be pretty hesitant to do this but I'd like to hear more about
how you see this working with coverage/fuzzing.

>  2. Auto-update all diffs, but report them to a human user for
>     inspection.  This ends up meaning that tests never "fail" per se,
>     but that individuals who have expressed interest in particular tests
>     get an automated notification and a chance to respond on list with a
>     reduced example.

That's certainly workable.

>  3. As a variant on the former, don't auto-update tests, but only inform
>     the *contributor* of an end-to-end test of a failure. Responsibility
>     for determining failure vs false positive lies solely with them, and
>     normal channels are used to report a failure after it has been
>     confirmed/analyzed/explained.

I think I like this best of the three but it raises the question of what
happens when the contributor is no longer contributing.  Who's
responsible for the test?  Maybe it just sits there until someone else
claims it.

> I really think this is a problem we need to have thought through and 
> found a workable solution before end-to-end testing as proposed becomes 
> a practically workable option.

Noted.  I'm very happy to have this discussion and work the problem.

                     -David