- The postmaster should be invoked with the system time zone set for
- Berkeley, California. This is done automatically by the regression
-test script. However, it does require machine support for the PST8PDT
-time zone.
-
-
-To verify that your machine does have this support, type
-the following:
+ It was formerly necessary to run the postmaster with system time zone
+ set to PST, but this is no longer required. You can run the regression
+ tests under your normal postmaster configuration. The test script will
+ set the PGTZ environment variable to ensure that timezone-dependent tests
+ produce the expected results. However, your system must provide
+ library support for the PST8PDT time zone, or the timezone-dependent
+ tests will fail.
+ To verify that your machine does have this support, type
+ the following:
setenv TZ PST8PDT
date
like ps and tar vary wildly on what options you should use on each
platform. Use common sense before typing in these commands.
-
-
<ProductName>Postgres</ProductName> Regression Configuration
For a fresh install or upgrading from previous releases of
-
-
- Build the regression test. Type
- cd /usr/src/pgsql/src/test/regress
- gmake all
-
-
-
-
-
- If you have prevously invoked the regression test, clean up the
- working directory with:
-
- cd /usr/src/pgsql/src/test/regress
- make clean
-
-
-
+
+
<ProductName>Postgres</ProductName> Regression Configuration
+
The file /usr/src/pgsql/src/test/regress/README has detailed
- required">
+ optional">
- Run the regression tests. Type
+ If you have previously invoked the regression test, clean up the
+ working directory with:
cd /usr/src/pgsql/src/test/regress
- gmake runtest
+ gmake clean
-
-
+
-
You do not need to type "gmake clean" if this is the first time you
are running the tests.
+
+
+
+
+ Build the regression test. Type
+ cd /usr/src/pgsql/src/test/regress
+ gmake all
+
+
+
+
+
+ Run the regression tests. Type
+ cd /usr/src/pgsql/src/test/regress
+ gmake runtest
+
+
- After running the tests, type
+ After running the tests and examining the results, type
destroydb regression
cd /usr/src/pgsql/src/test/regress
gmake clean
+ to recover the temporary disk space used by the tests.
Regression Analysis
-
- Failed
tests may have failed due to slightly different error messages,
- math libraries, or output formatting.
+
+ The results are in files in the ./results directory. These results
+ can be compared with results in the ./expected directory using 'diff'.
+ (The test script does this for you, and leaves the differences
+ in ./regression.diffs.)
+
+
+ The files might not compare exactly. The test script will report
+ any difference as a "failure", but the difference might be due
+ to small cross-system differences in error message wording,
+ math library behavior, etc.
"Failures" of this type do not indicate a problem with
- For a i686/Linux-ELF platform, no tests failed since this is the
- v6.2.1 regression testing reference platform.
-
-
- For the SPARC/Linux-ELF platform, using the 970525 beta version of
-
Postgres v6.2 the following tests "failed":
- float8 and geometry "failed" due to minor precision differences in
- floating point numbers. select_views produces massively different output,
- but the differences are due to minor floating point differences.
-
-
- Conclusion? If you do see failures, try to understand the nature of
- the differences and then decide if those differences will affect your
- intended use of
Postgres. However, keep in mind that this is likely
- to be the most solid release of
Postgres to date, incorporating many
- bug fixes from v6.1, and that previous versions of
Postgres have been
- in use successfully for some time now.
+ Thus, it is necessary to examine the actual differences for each
+ "failed" test to determine whether there is really a problem.
+ The following paragraphs attempt to provide some guidance in
+ determining whether a difference is significant or not.
-
-
Comparing expected/actual output
-
- The results are in files in the ./results directory. These results
- can be compared with results in the ./expected directory using 'diff'.
- The files might not compare exactly. The following paragraphs attempt
- to explain the differences.
-
-
-
-
Error message differences
Date and time differences
- On many supported platforms, you can force PostgreSQL to believe that it
- is running in the same time zone as Berkeley, California. See details in
- the section on how to run the regression tests.
-
- If you do not explicitly set your time zone environment to PST8PDT, then
- most of the date and time results will reflect your local time zone and
- will fail the regression testing.
-
- There appears to be some systems which do not accept the recommended syntax
- for explicitly setting the local time zone rules. Some systems using the
- public domain time zone package exhibit minor problems with pre-1970 PDT
- times, representing them in PST instead.
+ Most of the date and time results are dependent on timezone environment.
+ The reference files are generated for timezone PST8PDT (Berkeley,
+ California) and there will be apparent failures if the tests are not
+ run with that timezone setting. The regression test driver sets
+ environment variable PGTZ to PST8PDT to ensure proper results.
+
+
+ There appear to be some systems which do not accept the recommended syntax
+ for explicitly setting the local time zone rules; you may need to use
+ a different PGTZ setting on such machines.
+
+
+ Some systems using older timezone libraries fail to apply daylight-savings
+ corrections to pre-1970 dates, causing pre-1970 PDT times to be displayed
+ in PST instead. This will result in localized differences in the test
+ results.
Floating point differences
- Some of the tests involve computing 64-bit (float8) number from table
+ Some of the tests involve computing 64-bit (float8) numbers from table
columns. Differences in results involving mathematical functions of
- float8 columns have been observed. These differences occur where
- different operating systems are used on the same platform ie:
- BSDI and SOLARIS on Intel/86, and where the same operating system is
- used used on different platforms, ie: SOLARIS on SPARC and Intel/86.
-
+ float8 columns have been observed. The float8
+ and geometry tests are particularly prone to small differences
+ across platforms.
Human eyeball comparison is needed to determine the real significance
of these differences which are usually 10 places to the right of
the decimal point.
-
+
+
Some systems signal errors from pow() and exp() differently from
the mechanism expected by the current Postgres code.
There is at least one test case in random.out which is intended to produce
- random results. This causes random to fail the regression testing.
+ random results. This causes random to fail the regression testing
+ once in a while.
Typing
diff results/random.out expected/random.out
projects / postgresql.git / commitdiff