[Python-Dev] Fix or drop AIX buildbot?

[Victor Stinner]

I created http://bugs.python.org/issue29972 to skip tests known to
fail on AIX. I already proposed two different pull requests which fix
some tests (not all tests yet).

Victor

2017-04-03 16:12 GMT+02:00 Victor Stinner <victor.stinner at gmail.com>:
> 2017-04-03 16:00 GMT+02:00 David Edelsohn <dje.gcc at gmail.com>:
>> I have fixed the Git problem.  I thought that it had been working.
>
> Thank you :-) I see tests running:
> http://buildbot.python.org/all/builders/PPC64%20AIX%203.x/builds/567/steps/test/logs/stdio
>
>> The testsuite failures on AIX are issues with the AIX kernel and C
>> Library, often corner cases.  I don't want to get into arguments about
>> the POSIX standard.  Some of the issues are actual conformance issues
>> and some are different interpretations of the standard.
>
> Many tests of the CPython test suite actually test also the OS, not
> only Python. But in many cases, it's complex to "mock" the OS
> (unittest.mock), since tested functions are thin wrapper to syscals.
>
>>  Addressing the problems in AIX is a slow process. If the failing testcases are
>> too annoying, I would recommend to skip the testcases.
>
> So yeah, let's skip such tests on AIX!
>
>> Despite the testsuite failures, Python builds and runs on AIX for the
>> vast majority of users and applications.  I don't see the benefit in
>> dropping support for a platform that functions because it doesn't
>> fully pass the testsuite.
>
> It's a limitation of buildbot, the output is basically binary: pass
> (green) or fail (red). If buildbot would understand test results
> (parse stdout, or Python produces a output file easier to parse), it
> would be possible to detect *regressions* compared to previous runs.
> Using Jenkins and JUnit, I know that it's possible to do that. But I'm
> not volunteer to handle buildbot or switch to Jenkins, I can only help
> to fix buildbot issues ;-)
>
> My point is that with the current tools, it's hard to distinguish
> regressions to "known failures": buildbots failing since many months.
>
> Victor