JTreg upwards compatibility?

[Volker Simonis]

Martin, Jonathan,

thanks a lot for your answers!

Regards,
Volker


On Thu, May 12, 2016 at 5:42 PM, Jonathan Gibbons
<jonathan.gibbons at oracle.com> wrote:
> On 05/12/2016 08:10 AM, Volker Simonis wrote:
>>
>> Hi,
>>
>> I wanted to ask if JTreg is supposed to be upwards compatible.
>>
>> I.e. should it be possible to run OpenJDK 7 and 8 regression tests
>> with the newest JTreg version?
>>
>> If not, is there a source which describes the required JTreg version
>> for successfully running the regression tests of the various OpenJDK
>> releases? Which JTreg versions is Oracle using for running its OpenJDK
>> 7 and 8 regression tests?
>>
>> Thank you and best regards,
>> Volker
>
>
> Generally, the answer to your question is "yes".
>
> This is one of the reasons why we abandoned "samevm" mode
> a year or more ago, in favor of "agentvm" mode".
>
> The general policy statement is as follows:
>
> 1. jtreg can run tests all the way back to JDK 1.1 in othervm mode.
>     (Although this is not routinely tested, these days.)
>
> 2. jtreg can run tests all the way back to JDK 5 in agentvm mode,
>     although some tests use TestNG and JUnit, and the versions
>     of these libraries recommended for use with JDK 9 tests require
>     the use of JDK 7 or greater.  However, I do not believe any of
>     the standard JDK tests for OpenJDK 6 use TestNG or JUnit, so
>     this should not be an issue.  If it is, there are ways to override
>     the versions of these libraries that are bundled with a jtreg build.
>
> There is a potential issue that can reasonably be addressed.  If you
> run jtreg through the <repo>/test/Makefile mechanisms, the standard
> invocation is to use the same build/version of JDK to run jtreg as the
> one being tested. This was expedient at the time, although not the
> best practice.  The current recommendation is to use a recent stable
> build of JDK to *run* jtreg, that is distinct from the version of JDK
> being tested.   If you use <repo>/test/Makefile for JDK 6, this may
> require some changes to the makefiles.
>
> There is discussion about abandoning support for running tests on very
> old versions of JDK, such as for JDK 5 and earlier, and at the same time,
> raising the bar for the version used to *run* jtreg up to the latest
> supported version (currently JDK 8.)  This would not affect the ability
> to be able to run tests in othervm mode or agentvm mode on all
> supported releases. One of the primary concerns is whether the latest
> supported version (i.e. JDK 8) can run on all the hardware/OS
> combinations used to test the oldest supported versions. However,
> this is becoming less of an issue these days, since JDK 8 does appear
> to be available on all relevant platforms.
>
> There is a general desire within the JDK team to use a single version of
> jtreg to run tests on all supported versions of JDK, and not to have to
> freeze
> or fork different versions of jtreg to run tests on different releases.
>
> -- Jon
>
>
>
>