README file for Singular test-suite
===================================

This is the test-suite for Singular. This directory contains

regress.cmd	-- perl script which drives tests
Short		-- directory containing "short" tests
Long		-- directory containing "long" tests
Old			-- directory containing "old" (TST) tests
recommended set of tests:
./regress.cmd Old/universal.lst Buch/buch.lst Plural/short.lst Plural/dmod.lst Short/ok_s.lst Long/ok_l.lst

Run
  perl ./regress.cmd -h
for a summary of the comand-line options of regress.cmd.

To test(s) correctness of Singular:
-----------------------------------
1.) Put the Singular binary in this directory
    (prefered solution: ln -s <path_to_Singular_binary> Singular)
2.) Run
     perl ./regress.cmd [*.tst] [*.lst]
    with the desired tst (i.e., Singular test scripts) or lst (list
    of tst files -- see Old/universal.lst for an example) file(s).
    (prefered test scenario:
    perl ./regress.cmd Old/universal.lst Short/ok_s.lst Long/ok_l.lst
    )
3.) If no differences between the new results and the
    previously obtained results are found, regress.cmd exits with
    status 0.
4.) If differences between the new results and the
    previously obtained results are found, regress.cmd exits with
    status != 0, and, for each file xx.tst which lead to a
    difference, the coresponding files xx.new.res, xx.res, and xx.diff
    are kept, and differences are written to stdout.
5.) The Singular executable which is used for testing can
    alternatively be specified using the -s <Singular> option.


To test memory/timing performance of Singular:
----------------------------------------------
1.) Put the Singular binary in this directory
2.) Run
     perl ./regress.cmd -e [*.tst] [*.lst]
    with the desired tst (i.e., Singular test scripts) or lst (list
    of tst files -- see Old/universal.lst for an example) file(s).
3.) If no result differences occur, and if timing/memory performance
    differences are less than $error_val (currently set to 5)
    per-cent, then regress.cmd exits with status 0.
4.) Otherwise, exit status is != 0, and the corresponding files
    xx.new.res, xx.res, xx.diff, and xx.stat.diff (which logs the
    differences of timing/memory performance) are kept, and
    differences are written to stdout.
5.) Using the -r instead of the -e option only reports about
    memory/timings differences, i.e., it does not cause an exit with
    status != 0 if timing/memory performance is above specified
    per-cent.
6.) The timing/memory performance differenes which trigger an error
    (or, report) can be also be set: Either use
      ./regress.cmd -[e,r] all%<val>
    which sets tolerance of all criteria to <val> per-cent, or, use
      ./regress.cmd -[e,r] <crit>%<val>
    which sets tolerance of all <crit> to <val> per-cent.

To generate new result file(s):
-------------------------------
Run
    perl ./regress.cmd -g [*.tst] [*.lst]
with the desired tst (i.e., Singular test scripts) or lst (list
of tst files).
NOTE: Running regress.cmd with the -g option re-generates the result
and stat files, i.e., all previous results and statisitics are
overwritten and lost!

To include timing/memory statistics for a machine:
---------------------------------------------------
Run
    perl ./regress.cmd -m [*.tst] [*.lst]
with the desired tst (i.e., Singular test scripts) or lst (list
of tst files).
NOTE:  Running regress.cmd with the -m option merges the
timings/memory results of the current machine into the respective
xx.stat file and overwrites previous timings/memory results of the
current machine.


To add a new test for a library/commando to the test-suite:
-----------------------------------------------------------
* The following files need to be provided:
	short/xx_s.tst : Singular code for short and basic tests
	long/xx_l.tst : Singular code for long and extended tests
  or, alternatively:
        short/xx.tst: Singular code for short tests, only
	short/xx.res : Result output of xx.tst

* xx_s.tst should test the essential functionality of the
  library/commando in a relatively short time (say, in no more than
  30s).

* xx_l.tst should test the functionality of the
  library/commando in detail so that, if possible, all relevant
  cases/results are tested. Nevertheless, such a test should not run
  longer than, say, 10 minutes.

* If useful tests do generally execute in a short time, have xx.tst,
  only.

* Rules for providing tst files:
  1.) tst files always start with the following three commandos as
  preamble:
         LIB "tst.lib";
         tst_init();
	 tst_ignore("CVS ID $Id$"); // or, write own version number here
  tst_init() writes some general info to stdout (like date,
  uname, hostname, version, etc.). The library tst.lib (contained in
  the Singular distribution) provides, among others, the routines
  tst_init() and tst_ignore().

  2.) tst files should end with the following statements:
         tst_status(1); $
  which enables (automatic) checks of the timing/memory performance of
  Singular.

  3.) All system-dependent output (like run-times, memory usages,
  pathnames, dates, etc.) should generally be avoided.

  4.) After time/memory critical sections of the tst files, the
  command
        tst_status();
  should be inserted. This enables (automatic) checks of the
  timing/memory performance of Singular since the last call to
  tst_status (resp. since the start-up of Singular).

  5.) If system-dependent output can not be avodied, the routine
  tst_ignore(...) should be used:
  tst_ignore(val [, keyword]): 'val' can have arbitrary type for which
                               a string conversion exists;
                               if present, keyword must be one of the
                               following strings: "time", "memory"
  tst_ignore() outputs 'val' by prepending the following prefix:
  no keyword --       // tst_ignore:
  "time" keyword --   // tst_ignore: time:
  "memory" keyword -- // tst_ignore: memory:
  which causes automatic tests to ignore these lines when doing a diff
  on result files.

* The command for generating xx.res.gz.uu and xx.stat is:
  cd <directopry where xx.tst resides>; perl ../regress.cmd -g xx.tst