[Python-Dev] Parallel test execution on buildbot

[Nick Coghlan]

Martin v. Löwis wrote:
>> Has anyone considered using regrtest's -j option in the buildbot
>> configuration to speed up the test runs?
> 
> Yes, I did. I turned it off again when the tests started failing because
> of it.

Yeah, a lot of our tests weren't written with parallel execution in mind
(e.g. the existence of test_support.TESTFN, using specific ports for
test servers).

While they've been getting better (e.g. increased use of randomly
generated temporary directories over specific filenames, letting the OS
assign a free port to servers), I believe there is still a fair bit of
work to be done to make them all "parallel execution friendly" (of
course, some tests, such as those that try to trigger MemoryError, are
inherently parallel execution unfriendly).

So yes, we've thought about it, but there's still work to be done before
that option can be used without having to worry about false alarms.

Cheers,
Nick.

-- 
Nick Coghlan   |   ncoghlan at gmail.com   |   Brisbane, Australia
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