[Ns-developers] improving regression tests of ns-3

[Tom Henderson]

>> the problem is that the module 'internet-node' is not supposed to depend
>> on the 'point-to-point' module. Furthermore, for the sake of writing
>> tests, I would like to test only what I am interested in, not some other
>> random piece of code like PointToPointNetDevice. i.e., I would like to
>> isolate the different components of the system to avoid testing
>> unrelated pieces when I really want to test UdpSocket.
> 


I think that what you suggest is reasonable (a simple net device usable 
across all modules, located in src/node) but a more useful TestNetDevice 
or SimpleNetDevice might also include other modeling capabilities.  I 
can envision, for transport testing, that one would want to be able to 
model also delay (and jitter) and dropped packets, independently 
settable in forward and reverse directions.  These could be based on 
random variables and still keep the device/channel otherwise stateless.

I would recommend to look at Michele Weigle's DelayBox for ns-2:
http://dirt.cs.unc.edu/delaybox/

Tom