[Libreoffice-qa] Calc quality and compatibility tests

[Markus Mohrhard]

> Michael Meeks-2 wrote
>>> In addition there are even some Perl scripts to automagically test if the
>>> builds pass the tests...
>>
>>       We could easily do that headless during the build in LibreOffice if
>> someone was interested.
>
> I assume people in the QA team would be interested?

We are already such tests in the build. See the sc/qa/unit directory
for all sorts of tests that we are excecuting during a build. We are
already executing import, export and further tests.

>
>
> Michael Meeks-2 wrote
>>       Not sure; as I say there are a lot of corner-cases in that document
>> collection that we don't pass - some of those need major structural
>> change in calc (eg. the boolean type) to make them work.
>
> I'm not sure I follow your logic here. There are major structural changes
> needed so it's best not to touch it? Is it like a wasp's nest?

It means that it is not as easy as you imagine it. All these large
refactoring normally feel for a Calc developer like a open heart
transplanation so we are very conservative in major changes there.

>
>
> Michael Meeks-2 wrote
>>       As an example of a pair of those. If we have other (small) torture-test
>> documents to exercise one particular feature - implicit intersections
>> say; it'd be great to have help extending that. Are you interested ? :-)
>> no doubt Markus would have some good advice as to exactly what would
>> help improve coverage most.
>
> I'm puzzled! How come =sum(2,2) equals 5???
>
> I am available to help. But first shouldn't we try to understand why these
> files work correctly in Excel and Gnumeric but not in Calc? Isn't it a
> LibreOffice goal to be 100% compatible with Excel files (at least on first
> import...)?
>

No. The target is to be OpenFormula compatible and then as second step
check how to be as good in opening Excel files as possible. Our native
format is ODF with OpenFormula so this is our main target and we
should make always sure to support it as good as possible. Then our
next goal is to support Excel roundtrips which is not always trivial
as not all concepts between the two can be mapped and our calc formula
model is built around ODF. We are working on improving the support for
both Excel and OpenFormula but these are long term goals.

So if you want to help out the best thing right now is to go through
these files and use the working corner cases in them to create test
files that we can use in our existing tests. Additionally filing bug
reports for every case where you see an error would help (maybe also
tracking them with a master bug). That helps to make sure that
whatever we do in the future non of the working corner cases becomes
broken. If you are interested in this task or know people who are
willing to help out with it I once wrote a wiki page for non-coders
how they can add test cases:
https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Development/Calc_Import_Unit_Tests

There is an additional set of test documents from the OOo Calc team at
http://www.openoffice.org/sc/testdocs/ that can also be used and
transformed into test cases for our automatic tests.

Regards,
Markus