release-0.9.txt

PyModel v 0.90 release notes

PyModel is a model-based testing framework for Python.  The initial
public release, Version 0.80, appeared in January 2010.  Version 0.85 in
March 2010 added features that support passive testing: automatically
checking log files (or other traces collected from instrumented
systems) against a model.

Version 0.9 adds some new functionality:
 
- programmable domains (including state-dependent domains). 

- wsgirunner, a simple standalone web server (with no dependencies
  other than the Python standard libraries), to make it easy to test
  web applications, including the WebApplication sample in this version.

- dotpdf, a command to produce graphic output in PDF files, similar to
  dotps (for PostScript) and dotsvg (for SVG).

Version 0.9 adds two new samples:

- populations, to demonstrate programmable domains.

- tracemultiplexer, to demonstrate using pymodel as a simulator.

Version 0.9 revises two other samples: 
  
- WebApplication, add webapp.py, a new web application in Python that
  works with with WebModel and Stepper in this sample.  The webapp.py
  application is a replacement for the PHP web application from
  NModel, so testing this sample no longer requires PHP or NModel.
  The webapp.py application has no dependencies other than the Python
  standard libraries (it requires no other framework).  The webapp.py
  application can be run by the new PyModel wsgirunner web server, or
  any other WSGI-compliant server (for example Apache with mod_wsgi).
  
- Socket, add a working Stepper to run tests against actual sockets,
  add several test suites and test scripts that demonstrate the model
  and the stepper.
  
Version 0.9 also adds some conveniences: 

- In test suites, when an action has no return value (the return value
  is None), the final None can be omitted from action tuples (In the
  WebApplication sample, compare TestIntSuccess.py to
  TestIntSuccessNoNone.py).

- In pmt, use the new -q --quiet option to suppress voluminous output
  (in the Socket sample, see test_q.py)

- In pmg, use the new -x --noStateTooltip option to suppress tooltips,
  in order to work around occasional (rare) crashes in the dotsvg
  graphics program.  (This problem has not been observed in any of the
  samples in this version.)

Version 0.9 makes some changes to be more consistent with recommended
Python style and programming practices.

- The subdirectory in the distribution that contains the core PyModel
  Python code is now named pymodel, not src.  However, the pymodel
  directory is still not a Python package (it contains no
  __init__.py), and several shell scripts, and the programs intended
  to be run from the command line (pma, pmg, and pmt) are still in the
  pymodel directory, not a separate bin directory.  The samples and
  their tests are still in subdirectories (not packages) under the samples
  subdirectory.

- New code and samples are coded in PEP-8 style. Only class names
  include uppercase characters.

- The PyModel tools now recognize alternatives for special PyModel
  function and variable names that are coded in PEP-8 style, without
  uppercase characters.  You can now use these identifers: accepting,
  statefilter (or state_filter), reset, selectaction (or
  select_action), testsuite (or test_suite), testaction (or
  test_action) as alternatives to Accepting, StateFilter, Reset,
  SelectAction, testSuite and TestAction

Version 0.9 prepares for future functionality, in particular for
observable actions and asynchronous steppers.

- ProductModelProgram, ModelProgram, FSM, and TestSuite classes
  include an ActionEnabled method, which will be used by a future
  version of pmt to check whether an observable action returned by an
  asynchronous stepper is enabled.

- The src directory contains pmt_observables.py, an experimental
  version of pmt that handles observable actions.  There are no
  samples in this version that use this functionality.  (Future
  versions of pmt may not be compatible with this experimental
  version.)


July 2011