[webkit-dev] Sharing WebKit mocks across platforms

[Adam Barth]

Thanks for bring this question to the list.  I don't have a strong
opinion here, but I want to make sure we think project-wide and pick
something scalable.

This discussion is also related to the discussion about adding
something like a layoutTestController object to WebCore.  Plumbing
this mock API all the way through WebKit for each port seems like a
waste.  If we had something like a WebCore::LayoutTestController, it
would make a lot more sense to expose that functionality there.

Adam


On Wed, Jul 28, 2010 at 11:30 AM, Steve Block <steveblock at google.com> wrote:
> I'm in the process of adding a mock client for DeviceOrientation,
> which will be used in DumpRenderTree to test the feature. In order to
> share the mock across platforms, I'd like to add the mock to
> WebCore/platform/mock.
>
> An interface to the mock will have to be exposed to the embedder
> through the platform's WebKit API, so that it can be configured by
> DRT, eg ...
>
> mWebView.getDeviceOrientationClientMock().setOrientation(...);
>
> To avoid each platform having to produce it's own WebKit wrapper for
> the mock, I'm considering adding a common WebKit wrapper, perhaps to
> WebKit/common, and I wanted to get some feedback on the idea. The mock
> would be shared between all C++ WebKit platforms. (Note that this is
> for convenience only, a platform could equally use it's own WebKit
> wrapper around the WebCore mock (eg Mac may do so in ObjectiveC), or
> use its own mock altogether.)
>
> Of course we also need WebKit wrappers for all of the non-POD types
> used by the mock's interface, and these have to be common between all
> platforms. One obvious potential difficulty is the wrapper for
> WebCore::String. Each platforms already has a wrapper for this type,
> but there's no guarantee of interoperability, so we'd need to write a
> new common interface if we're to use the string type.
>
> If a wrapper for string ends up being too problematic, the approach
> could still be used for mocks that don't need the string type (of
> which DeviceOrientation is one), but the approach then seems less
> compelling.
>
> Do people think that this is a reasonable proposal and worth pursuing?
> Has there been any attempt to do anything similar before? Or is any
> attempt to write this kind of common WebKit code not worth the effort
> and destined to failure?
>
> You can see the work in progress for DeviceOrientation at
> https://bugs.webkit.org/show_bug.cgi?id=39589 and a similar patch for
> SpeechInput mocks at https://bugs.webkit.org/show_bug.cgi?id=42603
>
> I'd appreciate any feedback you may have.
>
> Thanks,
> Steve
>
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