unregular test failure after building with cmake for vs 2017

[Werner Poschenrieder <We...@lrz.tu-muenchen.de>]

Hi,

I have built xerces with cmake for windows using vs 2017 and following the instruction given at
http://xerces.apache.org/xerces-c/build-3.html

mkdir build
cd build
cmake -G "Visual Studio 14 2015 Win64" -DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX=D:\libs    \path\to\xerces-c\source
cmake --build . --config Debug
ctest -V -C Debug -j 4
cmake --build . --config Debug --target install 
using "Visual Studio 15 2017 Win64" instead of "Visual Studio 14 2015 Win64"
and replacing Debug by Release in order to build the release version.

When I use ctest on each build, I get test failures that however are unregular and differ
from test run to test run.

I actually think that xerces is fairly stable and has been thoroughly tested on
your side. Could you give me any recommendation how to get a more stable
build?

Could it be that the ctest tool needs different arguments?

Kind regards
Werner



-- 
Werner Poschenrieder
Research fellow
Wissenschaftlicher Mitarbeiter

Technische Universität München
Wissenschaftszentrum Weihenstephan
Chair of Forest Growth and Yield Science
Lehrstuhl für Waldwachstumskunde

Hans-Carl-von-Carlowitz-Platz 2
85354 Freising

Tel. +49 8161 71 4714
Fax +49 8161 71 4721

Werner.Poschenrieder@lrz.tum.de
waldwachstum.wzw.tum.de

Re: unregular test failure after building with cmake for vs 2017

[Roger Leigh <rl...@codelibre.net>]

On 05/09/18 13:52, Werner Poschenrieder wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> I have built xerces with cmake for windows using vs 2017 and following the instruction given at
> http://xerces.apache.org/xerces-c/build-3.html
> 
> mkdir build
> cd build
> cmake -G "Visual Studio 14 2015 Win64" -DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX=D:\libs    \path\to\xerces-c\source
> cmake --build . --config Debug
> ctest -V -C Debug -j 4
> cmake --build . --config Debug --target install
> using "Visual Studio 15 2017 Win64" instead of "Visual Studio 14 2015 Win64"
> and replacing Debug by Release in order to build the release version.
> 
> When I use ctest on each build, I get test failures that however are unregular and differ
> from test run to test run.

Which tests do you see failing?  Is it e.g. the thread tests or any 
other tests?

> I actually think that xerces is fairly stable and has been thoroughly tested on
> your side. Could you give me any recommendation how to get a more stable
> build?
> 
> Could it be that the ctest tool needs different arguments?

It may be the case that it's running the tests in parallel which is the 
problem.  If you run ctest without the "-j 4" do you still see test 
failures?

I'm unsure that the tests were originally written with parallelisation 
in mind, and it may be the case that they need some adjustment to e.g. 
the files they are writing to avoid conflicting with each other.  I 
thought this was working correctly, but there may be some contention 
I've not seen myself.  (I've tested and used it with VS2015 far more 
than VS2017.)

I'm actually working right now on bringing my codebase using Xerces-C++ 
and all its dependencies up to VS2017, and I may well start to encounter 
this as well.


Kind regards,
Roger