[PATCH 0/3] RFC: test: Bring in the test hooks

[Simon Glass]

Hi Tom,

On Mon, May 5, 2025, 15:45 Tom Rini <trini at konsulko.com> wrote:
>
> On Mon, May 05, 2025 at 02:58:06PM +0200, Simon Glass wrote:
> > Hi Neil,
> >
> > On Mon, 5 May 2025 at 09:06, <neil.armstrong at linaro.org> wrote:
> > >
> > > Hi,
> > >
> > > On 02/05/2025 04:50, Simon Glass wrote:
> > > > During a recent discussion with Heinrich we discussed why the hooks are
> > > > kept in a separate repo.
> > > >
> > > > The amount of code is small, a tenth of the size of the recently added
> > > > lwip, just by way of example. Testing is a critical part of U-Boot and
> > > > one of the things that distinguishes it from firmware projects that have
> > > > not kept up in this area. By having the tests somewhere else, we are
> > > > signalling that it is unusual, or difficult, or optional.
> > > >
> > > > The hooks mechanism also needs something of an update to take account of
> > > > real boards in 2025. That will be much easier to undertake if the code
> > > > that test/py talks to is in the same repo.
> > > >
> > > > This series brings the hook files in as first-class citizens of U-Boot.
> > >
> > > So this will definitely remove the ability to have test hooks out of the
> > > U-boot tree ?
> >
> > No, not at all. I think Tom had the same thought, but I'm not sure where it
> > is coming from. You can of course put the hooks wherever you like, since
> > you have to specify the path for them anyway.
> >
> > >This is a major regression, and I do not want my test hooks
> > > to be in the main u-boot tree for plenty of reasons, the main reasons is
> > > that I need flexibility to handle my lab boards and I can't wait multiple
> > > weeks to have the hooks fixed in the main tree.
> > >
> > > This could be enhanced, but I agree with Tom, it's a bad idea to merge
> > > them in the main tree.
> >
> > Are there any other reasons, beside the misunderstanding here?
>
> I don't think there's a misunderstanding here. If I follow what you're
> saying, you want the hooks to primarily exist in the main source tree.
> Yes, of course someone could maintain them out of tree instead. But
> that's adding pain to that set of users.

People maintain them out-of-tree today. They can simply keep doing so.
I am not sure what you are getting at here.

> And I'm not sure what the
> benefit is to anyone else to move them in-tree. We're making the project
> CI path a tiny bit easier (but for what is also a small case) at the
> expense of all of the other cases.

Did you see Heinrich's email?

>
> If we must save two steps in the case of testing new changes for CI, we
> could add the u-boot-test-hooks repository as another git subtree. This
> would make it easy to test new CI changes at the expense of making it
> more costly (a git subtree resync) when we want to update the hooks
> repository.

I don't see how a subtree would help though. It's not as if some other
project is using it, upstream of U-Boot.

- Simon

> --
> Tom