Hadronic Test Suite Status

Purpose

The hadronic physics testing suite is composed of checks on the integrity and robustness of software written to simulate hadronic physics, and to verify that changes introduced into the software from release to release either do not change performance, or changes it in understood ways.

The hadronic testing suite has recently been updated but is still incomplete. This page will serve both to evaluate the status of these tests, and to monitor the ongoing work of bringing the suite up to date.

Contacts

System Tests

System tests are run before each release by the system testing team to check the integration and robustness of code. Code that passes the tests is approved for inclusion in the release. Within the hadronic suite, these tests typically consist of running one, or sometimes several, hadronic models or processes. A condition of success is that the code runs to completion, and that the length of the log file from the run does not exceed a certain limit.

Regression Tests

Regression tests are run before each release by developers in the hadronic working group to check that the physics performance of the code has either not changed, or has changed in an expected way as a result of code changes. Code that passes the regression tests is recommended to the hadronic working group coordinator for inclusion into the overall hadronic tag. These tests typically consist of a single hadronic model, run as a process, over a range of incident particle types, targets and energies. Comparisons to standard spectra and rates are used to gauge success or failure of the test.rocesses.

Unit Tests

Unit tests are run during the development and testing of hadronic code by the maintainers of the various hadronic models, processes and cross sections. They are meant to be run frequently or whenever code changes are made. These tests typically check the performance of the components of a given model, rather the performance of the entire model.

Plans

• Hadronic system tests are currently nearly complete in their coverage of hadronic models, processes and cross sections. Work underway or planned to complete the system tests is listed here:
  1. Replace test25 (Bertini + LEP) with a test of LEP/HEP exclusively
  2. Create system test for INCL/ABLA
  3. Create system test for non-CHIPS stopping processes
  4. Move some tests out of system testing and into regression testing
• Regression testing in hadronics is under developement, with only part of the models covered. Plans for the development of additional regression tests include:
  1. Set up a directory for each release to contain results of past regression tests
  2. Develop standard tools to use for regular regression testing, such as process-level code (as in Test30), automatic comparison of spectra or rates against a standard, stanard conditions of success, etc.
• Many unit tests exist for each hadronic model. However, most are not currently performed in a standard way and some are out of date or do not compile or run. Plans for standardizing both the running and reporting of unit tests are being developed.