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Which features in QGIS are covered by automatic tests of the QGIS team?

Ideally you could say most functions (such as add vector layer, saving a selected vector feature via save as selection) don't need user testing between versions and should just work. However new features are added and things/processes are changed between versions.

This - I assume - would leave any custom workflow processes to be tested, particularly in commercial environments. And users should be using long term release (LTR) QGIS versions.

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  • @PolyGeo I see that you are matching the question with the answer, but I am looking to understand what features users must test between versions, as clearly automatic tests don't cover everything. I think it is unfair to remove the sections that haven't been covered in the answer.
    – user97839
    May 31, 2017 at 9:23
  • Asking focussed questions can take some getting used to. In its current form this is a focussed question, has an answer and can receive more. If you want to ask an open-ended question to try and produce a list of other tests that people think you should also do then that that is likely to be closed as too broad and/or opinion-seeking. If you ask in your next question about how to develop a single test then that is likely to be a focussed question and fine to ask.
    – PolyGeo
    May 31, 2017 at 10:14

1 Answer 1

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You can find the automated QGIS unit tests in https://github.com/qgis/QGIS/tree/master/tests, for example for vector layers: https://github.com/qgis/QGIS/blob/master/tests/src/core/testqgsvectorlayer.cpp. (There is currently no list of what features are covered by automatic tests.) These tests are executed every time a developer commits new code to the repository. Helping to extend this set of tests is very important to ensure that nothing is broken by accident.

If your job is to ensure that your custom workflows continue to work after an upgrade, it would seem recommendable to build a test suite that automates testing of these workflows as much as possible.

It is worth noting, that it is recommended to test the development version already during feature freeze instead of waiting for the release - when it is basically too late to avoid shipping a broken version.

As mentioned in the question, it is recommended to use LTR versions in commercial and teaching environments. LTR versions do not receive any new features, only bug fixes. So it is still important to install LTR updates!

Any sufficiently complex software has bugs!

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  • Thanks for your help, Is there a list of what features are covered by automatic tests and which features are not? There are some names on the test in Github that doesn't appear to cover much of QGIS github.com/qgis/QGIS/tree/master/tests/testdata
    – user97839
    May 31, 2017 at 10:00
  • By any chance. Do you have any documentation, or links to add for how to build a test suite that automate testing of workflows? I think it would help to understand where to start, but maybe that requires another question. At present I am just going through some of the workflows manually and looking for differences to update my documentation/training for users
    – user97839
    May 31, 2017 at 10:02
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    I think you should open a separate question on how to automate (custom) (Q)GIS workflow testing.
    – underdark
    May 31, 2017 at 14:41
  • thanks, I have opened a separate question on automation. But since QGIS 3.xx is likely to be very different to QGIS 2.xx I am not sure if it is worth asking right now. See User: Joseph comments gis.stackexchange.com/questions/242405/… Also user PolyGeo thinks it is too broad, so yeah, maybe someone else should try asking it.
    – user97839
    Jun 6, 2017 at 8:24

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