Re: pg_upgrade and extra_float_digits

Tom Lane wrote:
> Bruce Momjian <bruce(at)momjian(dot)us> writes:
>
>> Andrew Dunstan wrote:
>>
>>> It's going to require some fancy dancing to get the buildfarm to do it.
>>> Each buildfarm run is for a specific branch, and all the built artefacts
>>> are normally thrown away.
>>>
>
>
>> Uh, that is not actually a problem. You just need to set
>> extra_float_digits=-3 to create the dump file, which is only done once
>> for each major version.
>>
>
> Wrong. In the first place, we're not going to start carrying something
> as large as a pg_dump of the regression database as part of the source
> code for the buildfarm. Even if we wanted to, it wouldn't work because
> the results aren't platform-independent --- there are float differences
> and probably row ordering differences to worry about. In the second
> place, it won't "only be done once", unless you imagine that we never
> change the regression tests for back branches; a casual perusal of the
> CVS logs will disprove that idea.
>
> The only thing that's really going to work here is to generate the dump
> on the fly.
>
>
>

This whole discussion leads me to the conclusion that we need to look
more imaginatively at our testing regime. When the buildfarm was created
it (via pg_regress) covered a lot of what we needed to test, but that is
becoming less and less true. Not only does pg_upgrade need testing but
we need to devise some sort of automated testing regime for SR and HS,
among other things. pg_regress is showing it's age a bit, I think.

cheers

andrew