Re: [Gnu-arch-users] Features command for arch

[James Blackwell]

Adrian Irving-Beer wrote:
> I hope I'm understanding the discussion so far, but it sounds like
> 'features' is a cheap way to announce capabilities that are
> programmatically (but expensively) provable.

Exactly.

> If that's the case, couldn't your regression tests be your calculator?

As a matter of fact, that's exactly where this came from. David's got a
load of regression tests that pyarch runs against tla. Depending on what
version of tla he's testing against, tla passes some regression tests
and fails others.

I suppose he could keep doing this, but for this idea to work reliably,
he'd have to watch the binary pretty carefully to make sure it wasn't
changed. If it is, then run all of the regression tests (which is quite
costly) again.

> If so, then perhaps the inclusion of a regression test that compares
> actual behaviour vs. 'features' flag could be a mandatory (or socially
> mandatory) prerequisite for any new addition to the features table.



[lightbulb]

That's what a feature "means". A feature means "this test case passes
for the arch developers"


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-- 
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