Potential timeout issues - tests running in the same vm

[Gary Adams]

  On 11/16/11 11:56 AM, Alan Bateman wrote:
> On 16/11/2011 16:29, Gary Adams wrote:
>>
>> The jtreg tests that use othervm along with a timeout argument should be
>> fairly reliable in getting a consistent result. The tests that did not specify
>> othervm may run into problems, if they are run concurrently with other tests.
>>
>> Here's a quick sampling of the java/util and java/lang tests that might have 
>> issues.
>> Would there be any harm in changing these to designate running in othervm mode?
> With jtreg then tests don't run concurrently in the same VM. By default then 
> each test is run in its own VM, unless you use the -samevm or -agentvm 
> options, in which case the tests run sequentially in the same (or an agent) VM 
> -- ie: othervm is the default. So I don't think there is a problem and we 
> definitely don't want to add /othervm to tests if we can avoid it (as it slows 
> down the test execution).
>
> -Alan

If we could demonstrate that the tests were not reliable in samevm mode
on a slow machine, then there might be more evidence that these tests
need to be isolated. e.g. even though the test execution is requested to be
in as fast as possible configuration, the test itself may be inherently unreliable
when run in that mode.