[webkit-dev] Problems porting layout tests to linux

[Jean-Charles VERDIE]

Hi Darin & all,

On 9/1/06, Darin Adler <darin at apple.com> wrote:
>
> To improve the situation, I'd like to see some of the following happen:
>
>      1) Reorganize the tests so that tests that should work across
> all platforms are separate from ones that might need different
> results per platform. (Perhaps we could rationalize the organization
> and naming of tests in some other ways as well.)
>
>      2) Change more tests to use dumpAsText as a way of making them
> platform-independent.
>
>      3) Come up with some techniques to make tests independent of
> font widths to make them platform-independent; for example, perhaps
> we can create a font with widths that are consistent on all platforms
> and use it for most tests.


It would surely be the best plan, but I'm not sure that it will be possible
(in a measurable human-based time). May be the fastest way of having the
tests more cross-platform is to split them into three categories:
1- those which already are cross-platform.
2- those which are not cross-platform, but which do not need a font. E.g.
comparing 2 cells of a table. We could replace the texts by pictures with a
specific size. The test would not be self-documented any more, but we can
solve this by a 2-windows solution, one with the explanation, and one with
the actual test.
3.1- those which are not cross-platform, but which need a font. Some can be
addressed by replacing DumpRenderTree by DumpAsText.
3.2 - ...But other tests in this third will hardly need a font, e.g. css
manipulation or font replacement.

For this latest part, I don't imagine a solution right now. May be some can
be addressed by your proposal #4 But one question is: how much of these
tests remain? if we address 1- to 3.1 ? IMHO here is the list :
- DOM: already x-platform
- plugins / svg / http / editing: we've not started looking at them
- Tables, fast, traversal: all should be replaceable by images
- CSS 1, 2.1: here is the list of our problems :) There are 362 tests in
these folders, but may be only 30% of them are belonging to the problematic
category so something like a big hundred of tests would need to be
re-thinked...


     4) Consider alternate dumping formats that would include what's
> relevant to check if a test succeeded that don't dump the entire
> layout and position of each element -- something in between "dump as
> text" and "dump render tree".


Yes!

Also, I think the DumpRenderTree tool is going to need a rename
> eventually. That was a good name for the original tool back when I
> first wrote it and it was only about render trees, but now it's more
> like "test engine" or something along those lines. Similarly, I think
> the LayoutTests directory might need a rename for similar reasons.
>

Very good idea, for sure.

Best regards,

-- 
Jean-Charles Verdié
Origyn Web Browser for Embedded Systems Team
CTO
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