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* doc/src/sgml/regress.sgml: Update for new driver script.

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* doc/src/sgml/installation.sgml: ditto.

* src/test/regress/README: Regenerate.

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REGRESSION TESTS
Introduction
The regression tests are a comprehensive set of tests for the SQL
implementation in PostgreSQL. They test standard SQL operations as
well as the extended capabilities of PostgreSQL. The test suite was
originally developed by Jolly Chen and Andrew Yu, and was extensively
revised and repackaged by Marc Fournier and Thomas Lockhart. From
PostgreSQL 6.1 onward the regression tests are current for every
official release.
The PostgreSQL regression tests are a comprehensive set of tests for the
SQL implementation embedded in PostgreSQL. They test standard SQL
operations as well as the extended capabilities of PostgreSQL.
The regression test can be run against an already installed and
running server, or using a temporary installation within the build
tree. Furthermore, there is a "parallel" and a "sequential" mode for
running the tests. The sequential method runs each test script in
turn, whereas the parallel method starts up multiple server processes
to run groups of tests in parallel. Parallel testing gives confidence
that interprocess communication and locking are working correctly. For
historical reasons, the sequential test is usually run against an
existing installation and the parallel method "stand-alone", but there
are technical reasons for this.
The regression tests were originally developed by Jolly Chen and Andrew Yu,
and were extensively revised/repackaged by Marc Fournier and Thomas Lockhart.
From PostgreSQL v6.1 onward the regression tests are current for every
official release.
To run the regression tests after building but before installation,
type
Some properly installed and fully functional PostgreSQL installations
can fail some of these regression tests due to artifacts of floating point
representation and time zone support. The current tests are evaluated
using a simple "diff" algorithm, and are sensitive to small system
differences. For apparently failed tests, examining the differences
may reveal that the differences are not significant.
$ gmake check
Preparation
in the top-level directory. (Or you can change to src/test/regress and
run the command there.) This will first build several auxiliary files,
such as platform-dependent "expected" files and some sample
user-defined trigger functions, and then run the test driver
script. At the end you should see something like
To prepare for regression testing, do "make all" in the regression test
directory. This compiles a 'C' program with PostgreSQL extension functions
into a shared library. Localized SQL scripts and output-comparison
files are also created for the tests that need them. The localization
replaces macros in the source files with absolute pathnames and user names.
======================
All 75 tests passed.
======================
Normally, the regression tests should be run as the postgres user since
the 'src/test/regress' directory and sub-directories are owned by the
postgres user. If you run the regression test as another user the
'src/test/regress' directory tree must be writeable to that user.
or otherwise a note about what tests failed. See the section called
Test Evaluation below for more.
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.
Note: Because this test method runs a temporary server, it will
not work when you are the root user (the server will not start as
root). If you already did the build as root, you do not have to
start all over. Instead, make the regression test directory
writable by some other user, log in as that user, and restart the
tests.
Directory Layout
root# chmod -R a+w src/test/regress
root# su - joeuser
joeuser$ gmake check
input/ .... .source files that are converted using 'make all' into
some of the .sql files in the 'sql' subdirectory
(The only possible "security risk" here is that other users might
be able to alter the regression test results behind your back. Use
common sense when managing user permissions.)
output/ ... .source files that are converted using 'make all' into
.out files in the 'expected' subdirectory
Alternatively, run the tests after installation.
sql/ ...... .sql files used to perform the regression tests
Tip: On some systems, the default Bourne-compatible shell
(/bin/sh) gets confused when it has to manage too many child
processes in parallel. This may cause the parallel test run to
lock up or fail. In such cases, specify a different
Bourne-compatible shell on the command line, for example:
expected/ . .out files that represent what we *expect* the results to
look like
$ gmake SHELL=/bin/ksh check
results/ .. .out files that contain what the results *actually* look
like. Also used as temporary storage for table copy testing.
To run the tests after installation, initialize a data area and start
the server, then type
Running the regression test
$ gmake installcheck
If you have previously run the regression test for a different Postgres
release, make sure you have up-to-date comparison files by doing
The server is expected to be running on the local host with the
default port number.
make clean all
Test Evaluation
The regression test is invoked with the command:
Some properly installed and fully functional PostgreSQL installations
can "fail" some of these regression tests due to artifacts of floating
point representation and time zone support. The tests are currently
evaluated using a simple diff comparison against the outputs generated
on a reference system, so the results are sensitive to small system
differences. When a test is reported as "failed", always examine the
differences between expected and actual results; you may well find
that the differences are not significant. Nonetheless, we still strive
to maintain accurate reference files across all supported platforms,
so it can be expected that all tests pass.
make runtest
or you can do
make runcheck
which invokes a parallel form of the regress tests, and does not
need an already-installed postmaster. Instead, runcheck creates
a temporary installation under the regress directory.
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 test script now does this for you, and leaves the differences
in ./regression.diffs.)
The files might not compare exactly. The following paragraphs attempt
to explain the differences.
Once the output files have been verified for a particular platform,
it is possible to provide new platform-specific comparison files,
so that future test runs won't report bogus "failures". See
'Platform-specific comparison files', below.
The actual outputs of the regression tests are in files in the
src/test/regress/results directory. The test script uses diff to
compare each output file against the reference outputs stored in the
src/test/regress/expected directory. Any differences are saved for
your inspection in src/test/regress/regression.diffs. (Or you can run
diff yourself, if you prefer.)
Error message differences
Some of the regression tests involve intentional invalid input values.
Error messages can come from either the Postgres code or from the host
platform system routines. In the latter case, the messages may vary
between platforms, but should reflect similar information. These
differences in messages will result in a "failed" regression test which
can be validated by inspection.
Some of the regression tests involve intentional invalid input
values. Error messages can come from either the PostgreSQL code or
from the host platform system routines. In the latter case, the
messages may vary between platforms, but should reflect similar
information. These differences in messages will result in a "failed"
regression test which can be validated by inspection.
DATE/TIME differences
Date and time differences
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.
Most of the date and time results are dependent on the time zone
environment. The reference files are generated for time zone PST8PDT
(Berkeley, California) and there will be apparent failures if the
tests are not run with that time zone setting. The regression test
driver sets environment variable PGTZ to PST8PDT to ensure proper
results. However, your system must provide library support for the
PST8PDT time zone, or the time zone-dependent tests will fail. To
verify that your machine does have this support, type the following:
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.
$ env TZ=PST8PDT date
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.
The command above should have returned the current system time in the
PST8PDT time zone. If the PST8PDT database is not available, then your
system may have returned the time in GMT. If the PST8PDT time zone is
not available, you can set the time zone rules explicitly:
FLOATING POINT differences
PGTZ='PST8PDT7,M04.01.0,M10.05.03'; export PGTZ
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.
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.
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 using older time zone libraries fail to apply
daylight-savings corrections to dates before 1970, causing pre-1970
PDT times to be displayed in PST instead. This will result in
localized differences in the test results.
Some systems signal errors from pow() and exp() differently from
the mechanism expected by the current Postgres code.
Some of the queries in the "timestamp" test will fail if you run the
test on the day of a daylight-savings time changeover, or the day
before or after one. These queries assume that the intervals between
midnight yesterday, midnight today and midnight tomorrow are exactly
twenty-four hours -- which is wrong if daylight-savings time went into
or out of effect meanwhile.
POLYGON differences
Floating point differences
Several of the tests involve operations on geographic data about the
Oakland/Berkley CA street map. The map data is expressed as polygons
whose vertices are represented as pairs of FLOAT8 numbers (decimal
latitude and longitude). Initially, some tables are created and
loaded with geographic data, then some views are created which join
two tables using the polygon intersection operator (##), then a select
is done on the view.
Some of the tests involve computing 64-bit (double precision) numbers
from table columns. Differences in results involving mathematical
functions of double precision columns have been observed. The float8
and geometry tests are particularly prone to small differences across
platforms, or even with different compiler optimization options. 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.
When comparing the results from different platforms, differences occur
in the 2nd or 3rd place to the right of the decimal point. The SQL
statements where these problems occur are the following:
Some systems signal errors from pow() and exp() differently from the
mechanism expected by the current PostgreSQL code.
QUERY: SELECT * from street;
QUERY: SELECT * from iexit;
Polygon differences
Random differences
Several of the tests involve operations on geographic data about the
Oakland/Berkeley, CA street map. The map data is expressed as polygons
whose vertices are represented as pairs of double precision numbers
(decimal latitude and longitude). Initially, some tables are created
and loaded with geographic data, then some views are created which
join two tables using the polygon intersection operator (##), then a
select is done on the view.
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.
Typing "diff results/random.out expected/random.out" should produce only
one or a few lines of differences for this reason, but other floating
point differences on dissimilar architectures might cause many more
differences. See the release notes below.
When comparing the results from different platforms, differences occur
in the 2nd or 3rd place to the right of the decimal point. The SQL
statements where these problems occur are the following:
The 'expected' files
SELECT * from street;
SELECT * from iexit;
The ./expected/*.out files were adapted from the original monolithic
'expected.input' file provided by Jolly Chen et al. Newer versions of these
files generated on various development machines have been substituted after
careful (?) inspection. Many of the development machines are running a
Unix OS variant (FreeBSD, Linux, etc) on Ix86 hardware.
The "random" test
There is at least one case in the "random" test script that is
intended to produce random results. This causes random to fail the
regression test once in a while (perhaps once in every five to ten
trials). Typing
diff results/random.out expected/random.out
should produce only one or a few lines of differences. You need not
worry unless the random test always fails in repeated attempts. (On
the other hand, if the random test is never reported to fail even in
many trials of the regress tests, you probably should worry.)
Platform-specific comparison files
Since some of the tests inherently produce platform-specific results,
we have provided a way to supply platform-specific result comparison
files. Frequently, the same variation applies to multiple platforms;
rather than supplying a separate comparison file for every platform,
there is a mapping file that defines which comparison file to use.
So, to eliminate bogus test "failures" for a particular platform,
you must choose or make a variant result file, and then add a line
to the mapping file, which is "resultmap".
Since some of the tests inherently produce platform-specific results,
we have provided a way to supply platform-specific result comparison
files. Frequently, the same variation applies to multiple platforms;
rather than supplying a separate comparison file for every platform,
there is a mapping file that defines which comparison file to use. So,
to eliminate bogus test "failures" for a particular platform, you must
choose or make a variant result file, and then add a line to the
mapping file, which is "resultmap".
Each line in the mapping file is of the form
testname/platformnamepattern=comparisonfilename
The test name is just the name of the particular regression test module.
The platform name pattern is a pattern in the style of expr(1) (that is,
a regular expression with an implicit ^ anchor at the start). It is matched
against the platform name as printed by config.guess. The comparison
file name is the name of the substitute result comparison file.
Each line in the mapping file is of the form
testname/platformnamepattern=comparisonfilename
The test name is just the name of the particular regression test
module. The platform name pattern is a pattern in the style of expr(1)
(that is, a regular expression with an implicit ^ anchor at the
start). It is matched against the platform name as printed by
config.guess. The comparison file name is the name of the substitute
result comparison file.
For example: the int2 regress test includes a deliberate entry of a
value that is too large to fit in int2. The specific error message
that is produced is platform-dependent; our reference platform emits
For example: the int2 regress test includes a deliberate entry of a value
that is too large to fit in int2. The specific error message that is
produced is platform-dependent; our reference platform emits
ERROR: pg_atoi: error reading "100000": Numerical result out of range
but a fair number of other Unix platforms emit
but a fair number of other Unix platforms emit
ERROR: pg_atoi: error reading "100000": Result too large
Therefore, we provide a variant comparison file, int2-too-large.out,
that includes this spelling of the error message. To silence the
bogus "failure" message on HPPA platforms, resultmap includes
int2/hppa=int2-too-large
which will trigger on any machine for which config.guess's output
begins with 'hppa'. Other lines in resultmap select the variant
comparison file for other platforms where it's appropriate.
Current release notes (Thomas.Lockhart@jpl.nasa.gov)
Therefore, we provide a variant comparison file, int2-too-large.out,
that includes this spelling of the error message. To silence the bogus
"failure" message on HPPA platforms, resultmap includes
The regression tests have been adapted and extensively modified for the
v6.1 release of PostgreSQL.
int2/hppa=int2-too-large
Three new data types (datetime, timespan, and circle) have been added to
the native set of PostgreSQL types. Points, boxes, paths, and polygons
have had their output formats made consistant across the data types.
The polygon output in misc.out has only been spot-checked for correctness
relative to the original regression output.
PostgreSQL v6.1 introduces a new, alternate optimizer which uses "genetic"
algorithms. These algorithms introduce a random behavior in the ordering
of query results when the query contains multiple qualifiers or multiple
tables (giving the optimizer a choice on order of evaluation). Several
regression tests have been modified to explicitly order the results, and
hence are insensitive to optimizer choices. A few regression tests are
for data types which are inherently unordered (e.g. points and time
intervals) and tests involving those types are explicitly bracketed with
"set geqo to 'off'" and "reset geqo".
The interpretation of array specifiers (the curly braces around atomic
values) appears to have changed sometime after the original regression
tests were generated. The current ./expected/*.out files reflect this
new interpretation, which may not be correct!
The float8 regression test fails on at least some platforms. This is due
to differences in implementations of pow() and exp() and the signaling
mechanisms used for overflow and underflow conditions.
The "random" results in the random test should cause the "random" test
to be "failed", since the regression tests are evaluated using a simple
diff. However, "random" does not seem to produce random results on my
test machine (Linux/gcc/i686).
Sample timing results
Timing under Linux 2.0.27 seems to have a roughly 5% variation from run
to run, presumably due to the timing vagaries of multitasking systems.
Time System
06:12 Pentium Pro 180, 32MB, Linux 2.0.30, gcc 2.7.2 -O2 -m486
12:06 P-100, 48MB, Linux 2.0.29, gcc
39:58 Sparc IPC 32MB, Solaris 2.5, gcc 2.7.2.1 -O -g
which will trigger on any machine for which config.guess's output
begins with 'hppa'. Other lines in resultmap select the variant
comparison file for other platforms where it's appropriate.