Re: [RFC PATCH] tests/functional: Don't fail any precaching errors

["Nicholas Piggin" <npiggin@gmail.com>]

On Wed Mar 12, 2025 at 4:36 PM AEST, Thomas Huth wrote:
> On 12/03/2025 00.41, Nicholas Piggin wrote:
> ...
>> I think *no* precaching errors including 404 should cause
>> failure because you would still want other tests to proceed
>> (in some cases).
>> 
>> But the failure should be caught when the test case tries to
>> fetch the asset, so you can still easily identify the download
>> failure.
>
> Sorry, I did not get that... if we ignore the 404 during the precaching 
> step, how should the failure be caught when the test runs? The downloads are 
> disabled that case, so the test cannot know whether the asset is not 
> available due to a 404 or any other reason...?

Right, it would need something to get that error to the test case.
I had not thought too much about it if there is disagreement about
it being a good solution then no point.

But some possibilities:
- downloads could be enabled even for pre-cache case
- the pre-cache step could build an in-memory dictionary of the
  assets
- some additional file name or attribute could be added to the
  pre-cache to convey status

I didn't follow the asset caching rework too closely so I could be
well off the mark, but I would look into 1 first since it might be
simplest. If that does not work maybe an in-memory metadata of
assets might not be too hard and could help with flexibility in
future.

Thanks,
Nick