[Ns-developers] Request for Merge -- Validation

[Tom Henderson]

craigdo at ee.washington.edu wrote:
> Hi All,
> 
> Tom asked me to put together something that can be used to drive
> non-trace-based regression tests and get it merged as soon as possible.
> I've put together a change to regression.py that allows us to pass or fail
> regression tests based on the return value of the test program.  I've added
> versions of the random number generator validation tests that don't have any
> code to generate pretty plots as a demonstration of how this might work.
> 
> The attached patch has:
> 
> 1) Changes to regression.py to allow non-trace-based tests.  The files in
> regression/tests work just like they used to, except if there's an attribute
> called "trace_compare" in the test module.  In this case, it tells
> regression.py to just look at the return code from the test program.  See
> regression/tests/test-rng-exponential.py for an example.
> 
> 2) There are four new .py files in regression/tests corresponding to the
> tests for four of the rng distributions I socialized a while back.
> 
> 3) There is a new valver (validation and verification) directory to hold
> dedicated tests.
> 
> 4) In the valver directory there is an rng directory in which you can find
> four .cc files corresponding to the chi-square tests for the four
> distributions.
> 
> N.B. The rng validation tests introduce a GSL dependency.
> 
> With this in place, we can begin to write validation and verification tests
> that do not use the trace comparison function.
> 
> I'd like to merge this ASAP.
> 
> Regards,
> 
> -- Craig

Craig, before I comment on the patch, this patch is a good example to 
ask the following.  Is this the type of patch that the submitter (or 
maintainer) should upload to the Rietvald tool?  And should the review 
be on ns-3-reviews mailing list?  What do the maintainers think about this?

- Tom