[Rd] Testing development code?

[Prof Brian Ripley]

On Fri, 6 Jun 2008, Spencer Graves wrote:

> Dear Prof. Ripley: 
> <in line> 
> Prof Brian Ripley wrote:
>> On Fri, 6 Jun 2008, Spencer Graves wrote:
>> 
>>> Hi, R Core Team:
>>>     How do you test the latest changes to the core R code?  Is it just "R 
>>> CMD check"?  Or do you use other tools, like the perl "prove" module?
>>>     I ask, because I'm about to start developing routine testing for other 
>>> (non-R) software, for which I can't do "R CMD check", and I'd like to know 
>>> what you do.
>> 
>> 'make check-devel', 'make check-all' and regression tests of (essentially) 
>> R CMD check over CRAN/BioC (the latter in arrears via daily checking unless 
>> the change is thought likely to break things).
>> 
>> If we were starting from scatch we would probably use a unit-testing 
>> framework such as provided by Runits.
>     How can I find information on 'Runits'?  Google led me to 
> 'http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unit_test'.  The other hits I got did not seem 
> as informative as Wikipedia.

CRAN package RUnit and its vignette provides another slant.

>     Thanks for the reply.  This is helpful.      Spencer Graves
>> 
>> C-based projects often use DejaGnu and similar -- scripting languages 
>> usually use themselves to run their test suites.
>> 
>> 
>

-- 
Brian D. Ripley,                  ripley at stats.ox.ac.uk
Professor of Applied Statistics,  http://www.stats.ox.ac.uk/~ripley/
University of Oxford,             Tel:  +44 1865 272861 (self)
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