[Scilab-Dev] Coverage ? <= Re: Release Scilab 6.0.0 alpha 2

[Samuel Gougeon]

Hello,

Le 01/12/2015 12:11, francois.granade a écrit :
> Good catch, the release notes are not very clear :)
>
> There *is* some basic documentation, however, in the change log 
> (accessible from "edit SCI/CHANGES_6.0.X" for example). Pasting them:
>
> New Features
> ============
>
> * Scilab now includes a full-featured debugger, with ability to run 
> Scilab scripts or functions step-by-step, to put (conditional) 
> breakpoint, in particular break only when an exception is set. Run 
> "help debug" for more information.
>
> * A new profiler and coverage tool has been added.
> It replaces the "profile" function (which is still there but not 
> working, and will be removed in the final release)*.*
> It produces HTML report for the time spent (profile) on each line. 
> Example of use:
>
>   covStart(isempty) // instruments the "isempty" macro; instrumenting 
> a whole library can be done with: covStart("elementary_functions")
>   for i=1:1e5; isempty(i); end // execute some code - this will be 
> profiled
>   covWrite("html", "TMPDIR/coverage") // write the profiling/coverage 
> report as "report.html" in the folder specified as second parameter
>   covStop(); // stop the profiling
>
> A function to merge multiple profiler/coverage is provided too: 
> covMerge([ list_of_files_to_merge], file_to_merge_to)*.*
> The API will change before the release; the current API is mostly to 
> get feedback from the community.
>
> * A "lint"-like command, slint, has been added, for code static 
> analysis: it detects unclear, risky or suspicious code.
> Usage: slint("<sci filename>")*.* It is not documented yet.
>
>
> We didn't want to advertise it too much, as we may changes these 
> functions before the release...

Here we are on the dev@ list. If even on the dev@ it is not possible to 
openly discuss about features /in development/, then where?

This part of the release notes is very surprising, because it only and 
hardly starts what could be a proper Scilab Enhancement Proposal.
No SEP was published. This means, that, no, you don't really need our 
feedback, since SEP are mostly designed for that.
For the moment, "coverage" does not look at all as a new functional feature.
Among the 3 proposed syntaxes, the first one is (now?) bugged:
covStart(isempty)    // yielded an error the first time i ran it. And 
when i tried
covStart("isempty") // it did not complain. After that, i tried again, 
from another fresh session, or a running one,
covStart(isempty)    // and it did no longer complain. May be it will 
complain again later, who knows.

Mixing input types between strings (name of functions or here library) 
and functions pointers (covStart(isempty), but covStart("mylibrary")) 
were already misleading within the former set of profiling functions. 
This has been reported on bugzilla. The first announcement of the new 
set shows that we learn almost nothing about former design/usage 
complications.

Then i tried with covStart("strsubst") // that is a builtin. Are 
built-in profilable? I know that the former profiling applied "only" on 
Scilab macros, but since this is a new profiler, i do not assume 
anything about any possible restriction. I do not really expect any 
answer here. A SEP is the right place to define what does a function, 
with which kind of parameters, according to which parameters format 
(string or function or primitive), the naming, etc.  A SEP is also a 
very good start to build the related documentation.

Whatever "strsubst" is an acceptable entry or not, no error is produced.

After running "uman" that uses a lot of strsubst(), covWrite(..) 
produces an empty report (attached).
Same thing with covStart(strsubst)
Same thing with covStart(uman) or covStart("uman") // that is a macro
Nothing. I get nothing with the beta-1. Unfortunately, i have 
uninstalled the alpha-2 for which these "coverage" functions have been 
first announced. The announcement has not changed for the beta-1.

The former profiling functions had an output in console, as well as in 
argout to enable post-processing (as for the running upgrade of 
bench_run(), >10 (?) years after its first release) , or in an 
interactive plot.
The few that is announced for the new profiling features looks much less 
than what was formerly available.

So, as somewhat Antoine told it, and after your answer, what i 
understand is that S/E needs to tell that it needs our feedback. I guess 
that we are expected to believe it. For the moment nothing really tell 
us that it needs more than telling it. But this can change.

Thanks, and regards.

Samuel Gougeon
One of your 100000 industrial downloaders/month

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