Automatic tests

[Hynek Hanke]

Hello,

I think the question is not really so much of:
     Where do we run the tests
as
     Which tests do we run

The tests currently available in src/tests/
have proved quite usefull, at least to me, to make
some ad-hoc interactive checks or to debug
some reported issues.

They are however, not really any good for automated
testing. The kind of tests that belong to make distcheck are

     1) automatic non-interactive tests
     2) interactive tests with clear yes/no resolution

I think the issue of comparing the sound output
with expected is much too difficult in all its relations
and we do not really need that. We would profit
highly if e.g. we had simple tests that run through
all the available SSIP commands (as described in
SSIP documentation) and check their replies
(as described in SSIP documentation).

A good example is the Python API tests in
  src/api/python/speechd/_tests.py

A set of interactive tests (e.g. priority resolution)
with a clear pass/fail result that needs to be
confirmed by the user are also possible. I would
appreciate having them aligned in a script one
after another.

As for placement: I think only few tests are installation
independent and make sense as part of make distcheck.

I think most useful would be a simple script or some special
make target, that one could run manually *after* installing
the .tar.gz or even distribution package, as on various hosts
in virtual machines, in various setups (user vs. system wide) etc.

Again, the Python API tests are a good example.

Best regards,
Hynek Hanke