Re: [PATCH v3 4/5] selftests/mseal: add more tests for mmap

[Jeff Xu <jeffxu@chromium.org>]

On Thu, Oct 17, 2024 at 12:00 PM Lorenzo Stoakes
<lorenzo.stoakes@oracle.com> wrote:
>
> On Thu, Oct 17, 2024 at 11:47:15AM -0700, Jeff Xu wrote:
> > On Thu, Oct 17, 2024 at 11:29 AM Lorenzo Stoakes
> > <lorenzo.stoakes@oracle.com> wrote:
> > >
> > > On Thu, Oct 17, 2024 at 11:14:20AM -0700, Jeff Xu wrote:
> > > > Hi Lorenzo and Muhammad
> > > >
> > > > Reviving this thread since the merging window is closed and we have
> > > > more time to review /work on this code in the next few weeks.
> > > >
> > > > On Fri, Sep 13, 2024 at 3:50 PM Jeff Xu <jeffxu@chromium.org> wrote:
> > > > >
> > > > > Hi Lorenzo
> > > > >
> > > > > On Sat, Sep 7, 2024 at 12:28 PM Lorenzo Stoakes
> > > > > <lorenzo.stoakes@oracle.com> wrote:
> > > > > >
> > > > > >
> > > > > > I also suggest we figure out this FAIL_TEST_IF_FALSE() thing at this point
> > > > > > too - I may be missing something, but I cannot for the life me understand
> > > > > > why we have to assert negations only, and other self tests do not do this.
> > > > > >
> > > > > My most test-infra related comments comes from Muhammad Usama Anjum
> > > > > (added into this email), e.g. assert is not recommended.[1] ,
> > > > >
> > > > > [1] https://lore.kernel.org/all/148fc789-3c03-4490-a653-6a4e58f336b6@collabora.com/
> > > > >
> > > > Specifically regarding Lorenzo's comments about FAIL_TEST_IF_FALSE
> > > >
> > > > Muhammad Usama Anjum doesn't want assert being used in selftest (see
> > > > [1] above), and I quote:
> > > > "We don't want to terminate the test if one test fails because of assert. We
> > > > want the sub-tests to get executed in-dependent of other tests.
> > > >
> > > > ksft_test_result(condition, fmt, ...);
> > > > ksft_test_result_pass(fmt, ...);"
> > > >
> > > > FAIL_TEST_IF_FALSE is a wrapper for ksft_test_result macro, and
> > > > replacement of assert.
> > > >
> > > > Please let me know if you have questions on this and Muhammad might
> > > > also help to clarify the requirement if needed.
> > > >
> > > > Thanks
> > > > -Jeff
> > >
> > > Right this is about not failing the test i.e. equivalent of an expect
> > > rather than an assert, which makes sense.
> > >
> > > What I'm saying is we should have something more like
> > >
> > > EXPECT_TRUE()
> > > EXPECT_FALSE()
> > >
> > > etc.
> > >
> > > Which would avoid these confusing
> > >
> > >         FAIL_TEST_IF_FALSE(!expr)
> >
> > FAIL_TEST_IF_FALSE(expr) is the right way to use this macro.
>
> But you don't only test position conditions, you also test negative ones.
>
So it is not a problem with the MACRO, but where is it used ?

        ret = sys_mseal(ptr, size);
        FAIL_TEST_IF_FALSE(!ret);

Take this example, it would be
assert(!ret)

The syscall return usually returns 0 to indicate success, where a
negative comes from, but dev should be so used to (!ret), it is a
common pattern to check syscall return code. e.g assert(!ret)

Or do you have specific examples of code that caused confusion ?


> 'Fail test if false false thing' is really confusing and hard to read.
>
> I struggle to understand your tests as a result.
>
> I understand 'fail test if false' is expressive in a way, but it's really hard
> to parse.
>
If you just read it  as assert(), would that be easier ? (or you don't
like assert() ?)

> Obviously it's also misleading in that you're saying 'fail the test _later_
> if false', which I hadn't even realised...
>
> It's well established in basically all normal test suites that:
>
> * assert = fail test _here_ if this fails (actually a valid thing to do if
>            you assert something that means the test simply cannot
>            reasonably continue if that condition is false).
> * expect = the test will now fail, but carry on.
>
> I mean you work for a company that does this :) [0] this is a very well
> established precedent.
>
> [0]:https://github.com/google/googletest
>
Let's use expect as an example, let's say I create a new Macro:
TEST_EXPECT_TRUE, which basically is same syntax as
FAIL_TEST_IF_FALSE, I'm not sure how it is different: you still have
!ret in the code.

 ret = sys_mseal(ptr, size);
 TEST_EXPECT_TRUE(!ret);

Or is the FAIL_xxx_IF_FALSE pattern more un-readable than  EXPECT_TURE
? maybe ..

> >
> > It is same syntax as assert(expr), e.g:
> >
> > man assert(expr)
> >        assert - abort the program if assertion is false
> >
> > FAIL_TEST_IF_FALSE is a replacement for assert,  instead of aborting
> > the program, it just reports failure in this test.
>
> So doesn't at all do what assert does, because that _does_ terminate
> execution on failure...
>
I don't know what you mean, the test case will fail, but the next test
case will run. This the point, the mseal_test continues to run all
test cases to finish, even if one of the test cases is failed.

> We are writing unit tests in a test framework, let's use very well
> established industry practices please.
>
> Also note that you don't even need to reinvent the wheel, there is a
> fully-featured test harness available in
> tools/testing/selftests/kselftest_harness.h with both ASSERT_xxx() and
> EXPECT_xxx() helpers.
>
The EXPECT_xxx() doesn't take care of reporting though,  or maybe it
needs to be combined with FIXTURE_SETUP, FIXTURE_TEARDOWN. I haven't
spent much time on those, but on brief look, it seems it is for
repeating some tests, which doesn't exactly fit into what I needed,
e.g. the sealed memory won't be unmapped.
It is possible that those tests can be adopted to use test fixtures,
but I don't see significant gain for that.

> I've used it extensively myself and it works well.
>
> I'd basically suggest you use that. Though moving existing tests to that
> would be some churn.
>
> On the other hand I really can't accept patches which are totally
> unreadable to me, so you'll need to fix this one way or another, and the
> churn is worth it as a one-time cost to be honest.
>
> >
> > Is this still confusing ?
> > (The FAIL_TEST_IF_FALSE is already a descriptive name, and the syntax
> > of assert is well known.)
>
> It's a super misleading name as it says nothing about _WHEN_ the test
> fails. Also the syntax of assert() may be well known but you don't call
> this function assert, you don't reference assert anywhere, and you don't do what
> assert() does so, you know, That's not a great example.
>
> The semantics of unit test frameworks are very well known, and already
> implemented for you, and also do not require you to do unreadable double
> negations for no reason, so let's use those please.
>
As stated previously, I'm not sure whether the test fixture is
benefiting mseal_test at this moment.  But I'm open for future
conversion when I have time for this. For now, I like to get those
tests in so we can properly detect  possible regression for memory
sealing.

What will help you better review this code? Would the below help ?

s/FAIL_TEST_IF_FALSE/TEST_EXPECT_TRUE/g


> >
> >
> > >
> > > Things.
> > >
> > > Hopefully that's clear? Thanks!