view doc/README @ 24505:031947baf4d0

run-tests: collect aggregate code coverage

Before this patch, every Python process during a code coverage run was
writing coverage data to the same file. I'm not sure if the coverage
package even tries to obtain a lock on the file. But what I do know is
there was some last write wins leading to loss of code coverage data, at
least with -j > 1.

This patch changes the code coverage mechanism to be multiple process
safe. The mechanism for initializing code coverage via sitecustomize.py
has been tweaked so each Python process will produce a separate coverage
data file on disk. Unless two processes generate the same random value,
there are no race conditions writing to the same file. At the end of the
test run, we combine all written files into an aggregate report.

On my machine, running the full test suite produces a little over
20,000 coverage files consuming ~350 MB. As you can imagine, it takes
several seconds to load and merge these coverage files. But when it is
done, you have an accurate picture of the aggregate code coverage for the
entire test suite, which is ~60% line coverage.

Mercurial's documentation is kept in reStructuredText format, which is
a simple plain text format that's easy to read and edit:

  http://docutils.sourceforge.net/rst.html

It's also convertible to a variety of other formats including standard
UNIX man page format and HTML. You'll need to install Docutils:

  http://docutils.sourceforge.net/

Use the Makefile in this directory to generate the man and HTML pages.