mysql-test overview
The basics
At the core, it is very simple. The client program mysqltest
executes a test file and compares the produced output with the result file. If the files match, the test is passed; otherwise the test has failed. This approach can be used to test any SQL statement, as well as other executables (with the exec
command).
The complete process of testing is governed and monitored by a mysql-test-run.pl driver script or mtr for short (for convenience, mtr
is created as a symbolic link to mysql-test-run.pl
). The mtr script is responsible for preparing the test environment, creating a list of all tests to run, running them, and producing the report at the end. It can run many tests in parallel, execute tests in the order that minimizes server restarts (as they are slow), run tests in a debugger or under valgrind or strace, and so on.
Test files are located in suites. A suite is a directory that contains test files, result files, and optional configuration files. The mtr looks for suites in the mysql-test/suite
directory, and in the mysql-test
subdirectories of plugins and storage engine directories. For example, these are valid suite paths:
mysql-test/suite/rpl
mysql-test/suite/handler
storage/example/mysql-test/demo
plugin/auth_pam/mysql-test/pam
In all cases, suite directory name is the suite name. A notable historical exception is the main suite, which is located directly in the mysql-test
Test files have the .test
extension and can be placed directly in the suite directory (for example, mysql-test/suite/handler/interface.test
) or in the t
subdirectory (e.g. mysql-test/suite/rpl/t/rpl_alter.test
or mysql-test/t/grant.test
). Similarly, result files have the .result
extenstion and can be placed either in the suite directory or in the r
subdirectory.
A test file can include other files (with the source
command). These include files can have any name and may be placed anywhere, but customarily they have the .inc
extension and are located either in the suite directory or in the inc
or include
subdirectory (for example, mysql-test/suite/handler/init.inc
or mysql-test/include/start_slave.inc
).
Other files that affect testing, while not being tests themselves, are:
disabled.def
suite.opt
- other
*.opt
files my.cnf
- other
*.cnf
files combinations
- other
*.combinations
files suite.pm
*.sh
files*.require
files*.rdiff
filesvalgrind.supp
See Auxiliary files for details.
Overlays
In addition to regular suite directories, mtr supports overlays. An overlay is a directory with the same name as an existing suite, but located in a storage engine or plugin directory. For example, storage/myisam/mysql-test/rpl
could be a myisam overlay of the rpl suite in mysql-test/suite/rpl
. And plugin/daemon_example/mysql-test/demo
could be a daemon_example overlay of the demo suite in storage/example/mysql-test/demo
. As a special exception, an overlay of the main suite, should be called main
, as in storage/pbxt/mysql-test/main
.
An overlay is like a second transparent layer in a graphics editor. It can obscure, extend, or modify the background image. Also, one can notice that an overlay is very close to a UnionFS, but implemented in perl inside mtr.
An overlay can replace almost any file in the overlayed suite, or add new files. For example, if some overlay of the main suite contains the include/have_innodb.inc
file, then all tests that include it will see and use the overlayed version. Or, an overlay can create a t/create.opt
file (even though the main suite does not have such a file), and create.test
will be executed with the specified additional options.
But adding an overlay never affects how the original suite is executed. That is, mtr always executes the original suite as if no overlay was present. And then, additionally, it executes a combined "union" of the overlay and the original suite. When doing that, mtr takes care to avoid reexecuting tests that are not changed in the overlay. For example, creating t/create.opt
in the overlay of the main suite will only cause create.test
to be executed in the overlay. But creating suite.opt
affects all tests - and it will cause all tests to be reexecuted with the new options.
Combinations
In certain cases it makes sense to run a specific test or a group of tests several times with different server settings. This can be done using so-called combinations. Combinations are groups of settings that are used alternatively. A combinations file defines these alternatives using my.cnf
syntax, for example
[row] binlog-format=row [stmt] binlog-format=statement [mix] binlog-format=mixed
And all tests where this combinations file applies will be run three times: once for the combination called "row", and --binlog-format=row
on the server command line, once for the "stmt" combination, and once for the "mix" combination.
More than one combinations file may be applicable to a given test file. In this case, mtr will run the test for all possible combinations of combinations. A test that uses replication (three combinations as above) and innodb (two combinations - innodb and xtradb), will be run six times.
Sample output
A typical mtr output looks like this
============================================================================== TEST WORKER RESULT TIME (ms) or COMMENT -------------------------------------------------------------------------- rpl.rpl_row_find_row_debug [ skipped ] Requires debug build main-pbxt.connect [ skipped ] No PBXT engine main-pbxt.mysqlbinlog_row [ disabled ] test expects a non-transactional engine rpl.rpl_savepoint 'mix,xtradb' w2 [ pass ] 238 rpl.rpl_stm_innodb 'innodb_plugin,row' w1 [ skipped ] Neither MIXED nor STATEMENT binlog format binlog.binlog_sf 'stmt' w2 [ pass ] 7 unit.dbug w2 [ pass ] 1 maria.small_blocksize w1 [ pass ] 23 sys_vars.autocommit_func3 'innodb_plugin' w1 [ pass ] 5 sys_vars.autocommit_func3 'xtradb' w1 [ pass ] 6 main.ipv6 w1 [ pass ] 131 ...
Every test is printed as "suitename.testname", and a suite name may include an overlay name (like in main-pbxt
). After the test name, mtr prints combinations that were applied to this test, if any.
A similar syntax can be used on the mtr command line to specify what tests to run. While it is currently not possible to specify what combinations to use, one can specify a test name and a suite name as follows:
$ ./mtr innodb | search for innodb test in every suite from the default list, and run all that was found. |
$ ./mtr main.innodb | run the innodb test from the main suite |
$ ./mtr main-pbxt.innodb | run the innodb suite from the pbxt overlay of the main suite |
$ ./mtr main-.innodb | run the innodb suite from the main suite and all its overlays. |
Plugin support
The mtr driver has special support for MariaDB plugins.
First, on startup it copies or symlinks all dynamically build plugins into var/plugins
. This allows to have many plugins loaded at the same time. For example, one can load Federated and InnoDB engines together. Also, mtr creates environment variables for every plugin with the corresponding plugin name. For example, if InnoDB engine was built, $HA_INNODB_SO
will be set to ha_innodb.so
or ha_innodb.dll
on Windows. And the test can safely use the corresponding environment variable on all platforms to refer to a plugin file, it will always have the correct platform dependent extension.
Second, when combining server command line options (that may come from many different sources) into one long list before starting mysqld
, mtr treats --plugin-load
specially. Normal server semantics is to use the latest value of any particular option on the command line. If one starts the server with, for example, --port=2000 --port=3000
, the server will use the last value for the port, that is 3000. To allow different .opt
files to require different plugins, mtr goes through the assembled server command line, and joins all --plugin-load
options into one. Additionally it removes all emtpy --plugin-load
options. For example, if some test is affected by three .opt
files, that contain, respectively
--plugin-load=$HA_INNODB_SO
--plugin-load=$AUTH_PAM_SO
--plugin-load=$HA_EXAMPLE_SO
and, let's assume the Example engine was not built ($HA_EXAMPLE_SO
is
empty). Then the server will get
--plugin-load=ha_innodb.so:auth_pam.so
instead of
--plugin-load=ha_innodb.so --plugin-load=auth_pam.so --plugin-load=
Third, to allow plugin sources to be simply copied into the plugin/
or storage/
directories, and still not affect existing tests (even if new plugins are statically linked into the server), mtr automatically disables all optional plugins on server startup. A plugin is optional, if it can be disabled with the corresponding --skip-XXX
server command line option. Mandatory plugins, like MyISAM or MEMORY, do not have --skip-XXX
options (like, there is no --skip-myisam
option). This mtr behavior means that no plugin, statically or dynamically built, has any effect on the server, unless it was explicitly enabled. A convenient way to enable a plugin XXX for specific tests is to create a have_XXX.opt
file that contains necessary command-line options, and have_XXX.inc
file that checks whether a plugin was loaded. Then any test that needs this plugin can source the have_XXX.inc
file and have the plugin loaded automatically.