[xquery-talk] BumbleBee XQuery Test Harness

[Per Bothner]

I think it is very useful to have a standard framework for
writing tests - though an open-osurce framework might be preferable.
(Of course you guys have to live, but perhaps dual GPL/commercial
license might be worth considering.)

Here are some (I hope constructive) questions:

The most obvious question is the format of the test cases, and the
obvious sub-question is why not XML?  Look at the use-cases.xml
in Kawa's gnu/xquery/testsuite directory.  That is an xml file
that contains a subset of the XQuery uses-cases.  The file
TestSuite.java (which extends TestMisc.java) is the driver.

There are pluses and minus on both sides.  The bee format is
slightly easier for humans to read and write, and it is probably
easier to write a bee parser than an xml parser.  On the other hand,
you presumably already have an xml parser (doesn't jdk 1.4 include
one, or does it just have the interfaces?), and having the test file
be xml allows yoo to filter and process it - perhaps using xquery.

Why do you require jdk 1.4 to run bumblebee?  What features do
you need not in earlier jdks?  Have you tried gcj or kaffe?

Why do you use JAVA_HOME?  It seems you only use it to get
the java executable.  Why not just use a $JAVA variable,
which defaults to the java in PATH?  That seems more portable,
given that JAVA_HOME isn't even a Sun standard.

Have you written any adapters to XQuery implementations that
are *not* Java-based?  I see hints of it - the manual implies
the cerisent adapter connects over the network.
-- 
	--Per Bothner
per at bothner.com   http://per.bothner.com/