[gs-devel] Public test suite

[Ralph Giles]

All,

We have for some time had a test suite that we do regression testing 
with. The output of this can be seen on the gs-regression mailing list. 
Unfortunately, most of those files cannot be made publicly available, so 
it has been difficult for anyone outside the core Artifex team to test 
changes before submission, or verify that their build is working 
correctly.

Ray has kindly gone through the bug database and pulled out all the 
public files there. We hope to use these as the basis of a public
test suite that everyone can use.

The files will be collected in the svn repository for easy tracking. The 
URL is http://svn.ghostscript.com/ghostscript/tests/

This is currently empty, but will be populated soon. If you have 
files you think should be in here, let us know, or commit them
yourself if you have access. The main criteria for inclusion are:

* Files that test a specific language feature
* Files that work with current Ghostscript, GhostPCL, GhostXPS
  but did not in the past (to regression test new code)

There are separate subdirectories for each of the major page description 
languages: ps, pdf, pcl, pxl, and xps. Please keep your files in the
appropriate subdirectory.

Ray and I will also add this new set to the suites used by the automated 
regression tests.

We hope this will let us be more open about our testing methodology,
and allow more developers and users to participate.

 -r