Re: [PATCH 0/4] tests/functional: Adapt reverse_debugging to run w/o Avocado

["Daniel P. Berrangé" <berrange@redhat.com>]

On Mon, Aug 25, 2025 at 11:04:58AM -0300, Gustavo Romero wrote:
> Hello, Thomas!
> 
> On 8/25/25 07:29, Thomas Huth wrote:
> > On 19/08/2025 16.39, Gustavo Romero wrote:
> > > The goal of this series is to remove Avocado as a dependency for running
> > > the reverse_debugging functional test.
> > > 
> > > This test, the last one I’m aware of that relies on Avocado, requires it
> > > because of the need for GDB to test reverse stepping and continue.
> > 
> >   Hi!
> > 
> > Please note that there are currently also some efforts going on to extract the GDB part from avocado into a more self-contained python module called aautils, which might help here, too:
> > 
> >   https://github.com/avocado-framework/aautils/issues/82
> 
> Thanks, I was not aware of it. But note that the Avocado GDB API requires one
> to deal with GDB packets directly, which is unnecessary for tests like reverse
> debug. I think that in general, in QEMU, we should try to avoid using it as
> much as possible because the tests became annoying to read without any strong
> need for it.
> 
> In the commit message for 4/4 I mention that benefit of using the GDB Python
> API instead.
> 
> I think we should aim to make the tests in QEMU _extremely_ easy to list, run,
> and read.

Yes, I really like how your patch improves readability of the test
by using GDB commands rather than raw packets.




> > Anyway, shifting to a different test harness here makes me wonder whether the whole reverse_debug test should maybe be rather moved to tests/tcg instead, where we already have the basic support for the stuff from tests/guest-debug/ ?
> > The aarch64 would require a different guest payload, of course, in that case, so not sure whether it's feasible?
> 
> I think reverse_debugging is really a functional test. It requires GDB, yes,
> but also QMP and booting a whole kernel and the feature itself makes me think
> it's a functional test. I wouldn't move it to tcg-check just for the sake of
> no adding a new way to run test in meson.build in functional tests.

Agreed, this conceptually feels like it belongs as a functional test.



With regards,
Daniel
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