Re: [PATCH] random_normal function

On 1/19/23 11:01, Tom Lane wrote:
> Andrey Lepikhov <a.lepikhov@postgrespro.ru> writes:
>> On 1/9/23 23:52, Tom Lane wrote:
>>> BTW, if this does bring the probability of failure down to the
>>> one-in-a-billion range, I think we could also nuke the whole
>>> "ignore:" business, simplifying pg_regress and allowing the
>>> random test to be run in parallel with others.
> 
>> We have used the pg_sleep() function to interrupt a query at certain
>> execution phase. But on some platforms, especially in containers, the
>> query can vary execution time in so widely that the pg_sleep() timeout,
>> required to get rid of dependency on a query execution time, has become
>> unacceptable. So, the "ignore" option was the best choice.
> 
> But does such a test have any actual value?  If your test infrastructure
> ignores the result, what makes you think you'd notice if the test did
> indeed detect a problem?
Yes, it is good to catch SEGFAULTs and assertions which may be frequent 
because of a logic complexity in the case of timeouts.

> 
> I think "ignore:" was a kluge we put in twenty-plus years ago when our
> testing standards were a lot lower, and it's way past time we got
> rid of it.
Ok, I will try to invent alternative way for deep (and stable) testing 
of timeouts. Thank you for the answer.

-- 
Regards
Andrey Lepikhov
Postgres Professional