testcode

testcode is a python module for testing for regression errors in numerical (principally scientific) software. Essentially testcode runs a set of calculations, and compares the output data to that generated by a previous calculation (which is regarded to be “correct”). It is designed to be lightweight and highly portable: it can be used both as part of the development process and to verify the correctness of a binary on a new architecture. testcode requires python 2.4-3.4. If these are not available, then pypy is recommended—for this purpose pypy serves as a portable, self-contained python implementation but this is a tiny aspect of the pypy project.

testcode can run a set of tests and check the calculated data is within a the desired tolerance of results contained in previous output (using an internal data extraction engine, a user-supplied data extraction program or a user-supplied verification program). The programs to be tested can be run in serial and in parallel and tests can be run in either locally or submitted to a compute cluster running a queueing system such as PBS. Previous tests can be compared and diffed against other tests or benchmarks.

testcode provides access to these features via an API. The supplied command-line interface, testcode.py, should be sufficient for most purposes. The command-line interface utilises simple configuration files, wich makes it easy to customise to the local environment and to add new tests.

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