more history

HISTORY

@@ -32,8 +32,7 @@ found a `.urchin` file.
 In either of these cases, Urchin uses the user-specified directory as
 the root; this is how Urchin `0.0.*` worked.
 
-Molly guard
+### Molly guard
-------------
 The Molly-guard works differently because it now considers the test suite
 root directory. The point of the Molly-guard originally was to protect
 you from things like this.
@@ -56,6 +55,15 @@ As before, you can override the Molly guard with `-f`.
 
     urchin -f build-scripts
 
+### Consolidation of temporary files in /tmp
+All of Urchin's temporary files are now stored in /tmp. Urchin previously
+created `.urchin.log` files alongside the tests, which led to such
+inconveniences as accidentally commiting them to version control repositories.
+
+This also means that Urchin will keep all of its temporary files in RAM
+if you mount a tmpfs on /tmp. On large test suites you may find the tmpfs
+to be slightly faster than slower storage media like solid-state drives.
+
 ### Skipping of tests
 Previously, tests were run if they were executable and were otherwise marked
 as skipped. Now, an executable script can indicate that it is skipped by
@@ -74,6 +82,52 @@ would the appropriate status code if these tests were Nagios plugins, as the
 concept of skipping a test is similar to the Nagios concept of unknown service
 status (https://nagios-plugins.org/doc/guidelines.html#AEN78).
 
+### Parallel test execution
+Tests now run in parallel when possible.
+
+Parallel processes come about in two situations when parallel execution is
+turned on.
+
+1. All files and immediate subdirectories of one particular directory
+   are run in parallel. This happens recursively; during the execution
+   of each particular subdirectory, that subdirectory's children are
+   also run in parallel.
+2. When cycling of shells is enabled, execution of a particular file in
+   different shells are run parellel.
+
+Parallel processing and shell cycling are both enabled by default.
+
+### Options
+Long options are now available for all command line flags.
+For example, the `-s` flag is now available as `--shell` as well.
+See the help for the full list.
+
+    urchin -h
+
+### Source setup and teardown
+setup, teardown, setup_dir, and teardown_dir are now sourced instead of
+executed; they are referenced a bit like this.
+
+    (
+      . ./setup
+      ./$thetestfile
+      . ./teardown
+    )
+
+My intent is that you should be able to export variables in the setup files.
+I think it would be fine to invoke the teardown files instead of sourcing them,
+but I chose to source them anyway for consistency.
+
+The disadvantage of this, and the reason I have been reluctant to do it,
+is that these files now become much harder to debug, so I recommend keeping
+your setup and teardown files very simple. I recommend either of the following
+strategies if your setup file gets complicated.
+
+1. Rename it to something starting with a dot, and explicitly source it
+   in your test file.
+2. Export a path in your setup file, rewrite your setup file as a shell
+   program, and put the rewritten file in your path.
+
 Version 0.0.6
 ---------------------
 

TODO

@@ -1,34 +1,6 @@
 Things I want
 =============
 
-Test speed
--------------
-Make tests run faster.
-https://github.com/bike-barn/hermit/issues/62
-
-First, easier thing is probably to run tests in parallel.
-
-Second, also easier thing is to tell people to save things to RAM rather than
-disk whenever they can.
-
-Third, harder thing is to put the test suite in RAM automatically. Maybe the
-whole test directory, which includes fixtures, gets copied to a tmpfs if one
-exists.
-
-Hmm or maybe there's a compromise: Tell people to mount /tmp as a tmpfs so
-that temp files are fast. Maybe allow people to set some other directory as
-the temporary file place, in case they want a different tmpfs location.
-
-In order to run things in parallel, we have to change how we do the
-stdout_file. I think it's easiest to create separate files for each test and
-to save them in testroot/.urchin/stdout/$filename. The test root would be
-defined as the closest ancestor containing a .urchin directory.
-
-Options
--------------
-I want long options. For example, there's presently -f and -e.
-I want to make them -f|--force and -e|--exit.
-
 Environment variables
 -------------
 Do something to make it easier to debug environment variables, because that is
@@ -108,26 +80,6 @@ This is as far as I have gotten with contemplating license changes. For now
 we're sticking with the original MIT-style license, but it's easy to change
 licenses later.
 
-Nagios plugins
------------------
-It would be cool to run Nagios plugins with Urchin. This is already possible,
-actually, but it might be worth giving some special thought to it.
-https://nagios-plugins.org/doc/guidelines.html
-
-Source setup and teardown
---------------------
-If setup and teardown are sourced instead of executed, maybe we can more
-cleanly create and teardown temporary files.
-
-    (
-      . ./setup
-      ./$thetestfile
-      . ./teardown
-    )
-
-On the other hand, this could just be sourced explicitly in the test file,
-without the special setup and teardown feature.
-
 Run on a file
 ----------------
 Presently you can run urchin only on a directory.