[libcamera-devel] [PATCH] meson: disable tests by default

[Kieran Bingham]

Hi All,

Quoting Umang Jain via libcamera-devel (2022-09-05 07:41:50)
> Hi Christian,
> 
> Thank you for the patch.
> 
> On 9/5/22 3:29 AM, Laurent Pinchart via libcamera-devel wrote:
> > Hi Christian,
> >
> > Thank you for the patch.
> >
> > On Sun, Sep 04, 2022 at 06:27:15PM +0200, Christian Rauch via libcamera-devel wrote:
> >> Compiling with tests adds a significant amount of build targets to the
> >> meson build. However, tests are only of interest when a feature has been
> >> implemented or for continuous integration.
> >> Disable tests by default to reduce the computational resource requirements
> >> and the duration of a complete libcamera built.
> >>
> >> Signed-off-by: Christian Rauch <Rauch.Christian at gmx.de>
> > As most people building libcamera won't run tests, this seems reasonable
> > to me. I'm however a bit worried that it would lead to lower
> > compilation-test coverage, as people may send patches without realizing
> > they break compilation of tests. We already have that problem for
> 
> I'm concerned about this as well.

When I first saw this patch over the weekend, indeed my reaction was
"Ahhh" ... but I also agree this is a better default to have off right
now.

We would like patches to be submitted after having all tests run, but
the majority of people who compile libcamera (currently) may not be
developers. We have lots of people compiling on RPi / IPU3 and low power
devices directly, and they certainly don't care for running tests.

So to improve user experience, I do think this should be off by default
(at least now) and that stance may change depending on our upcoming
release strategies ... but developers should be able to enable tests
anyway.

Ideally of course these tests will then be enabled and run on any branch
push to the common public hosting services, so I think we should
integrate a gitlab and github CI script that could build and run the
unit tests. (These could skip the kernel related tests initially).

Anyway,

Yes - 

Reviewed-by: Kieran Bingham <kieran.bingham at ideasonboard.com>

> > runtime breakages of tests, and it's most likely be addressed by test
> > automation on patches submitted upstream, so I think I'm fine with the
> > change.
> >
> > Reviewed-by: Laurent Pinchart <laurent.pinchart at ideasonboard.com>
> 
> Reviewed-by: Umang Jain <umang.jain at ideasonboard.com>
> 
> >
> >> ---
> >>   meson_options.txt | 1 +
> >>   1 file changed, 1 insertion(+)
> >>
> >> diff --git a/meson_options.txt b/meson_options.txt
> >> index 7a9aecfc..f1d67808 100644
> >> --- a/meson_options.txt
> >> +++ b/meson_options.txt
> >> @@ -47,6 +47,7 @@ option('qcam',
> >>
> >>   option('test',
> >>           type : 'boolean',
> >> +        value : false,
> >>           description: 'Compile and include the tests')
> >>
> >>   option('tracing',
>