PICT Varianter plugin

avocado_varianter_pict

This plugin uses a third-party tool to provide variants created by “Pair-Wise” algorithms, also known as Combinatorial Independent Testing.

Installing PICT

PICT is a free software (MIT licensed) tool that implements combinatorial testing. More information about it can be found at https://github.com/Microsoft/pict/ .

If you’re building from sources, make sure you have a C++ compiler such as GCC or clang, and make. The included Makefile should work out of the box and give you a pict binary.

Then copy the pict binary to a location in your $PATH. Alternatively, you may use the plugin --pict-binary command line option to provide a specific location of the pict binary, but that is not as convenient as having it on your $PATH.

Using the PICT Varianter Plugin

The following listing is a sample (simple) PICT file:

arch: intel, amd
block_driver: scsi, ide, virtio
net_driver: rtl8139, e1000, virtio
guest: windows, linux
host: rhel6, rhel7, rhel8

To list the variants generated with the default combination order (2, that is, do a pairwise idenpendent combinatorial testing):

$ avocado variants --pict-parameter-file=params.pict
Pict Variants (11):
Variant amd-scsi-rtl8139-windows-rhel6-acff:    /run
...
Variant amd-ide-e1000-linux-rhel6-eb43:    /run

To list the variants generated with a 3-way combination:

$ avocado variants --pict-parameter-file=examples/params.pict \
  --pict-order-of-combinations=3

Pict Variants (28):
Variant intel-ide-virtio-windows-rhel7-aea5:    /run
...
Variant intel-scsi-e1000-linux-rhel7-9f61:    /run

To run tests, just replace the variants avocado command for run:

$ avocado run --pict-parameter-file=params.pict /bin/true

The tests given in the command line should then be executed with all variants produced by the combinatorial algorithm implemented by PICT.