Test for issue 568 doesn't work in Release mode (assertions off)

[Jørgen Dokken]

The test relies on dolfin_assert causing a dolfin_error which becomes a Python RuntimeError. In release mode the tested code path will segfault instead of raising an exception.

Either the code path in MeshEntity.h must be rewritten (causing a potential slowdown in Release mode) or the test must be removed, at least from Release mode builds.

[Jan Blechta]

How do we reproduce it? I think you might have an old master. The test passes on buildbot and you can reproduce it

fenicsproject run quay.io/fenicsproject_dev/dolfin:master
cd ~/build/src/dolfin/test/unit/python/mesh
py.test test_cell.py -k 568

[Jørgen Dokken]

I used fully updated master branch for this test. I installed all dependencies for FEniCS with Hashdist (option 2) and cloned FEniCS master. Then I enabled testing and built FEniCS. The by typing

make run_unittests

in the build directory this error will occur.

[Jan Blechta]

Maybe, I can see the problem now. Do you have a build without assertions?

[Johannes Ring]

I reproduced this earlier today using fenics-install.sh and this HashDist profile. This is a build with DOLFIN built in Release mode.

[Jan Blechta]

New test_issue_568 is probably incorrect with -DNDEBUG. @trlandet, does

   with pytest.raises(RuntimeError):
        cell.facet_area(0)

on dolfin_assert? If it is the case it must be removed or run conditionally when -DDEBUG.

[Tormod Landet]

The test relies on dolfin_assert. The initial fix used "if(...){dolfin_error(...)}", but this was changed to dolfin_assert due to speed considerations.

I tried briefly to introspect dolfin, dolfin.cpp and dolfin.compilemodule to find a way to get the build flags, but was not successful. How does instant/dijitso know whether to build extensions in Debug or Release mode? This was not so clear from the compilemodule code.

If there is no obvious way to check for Debug mode (i.e. assertions cause dolfin_error), then the test must be removed. The fix is still there in Debug mode at least.

[Martin Sandve Alnæs]

(dijitso is not relevant, it does not build dolfin extensions)

[Martin Sandve Alnæs]

My guess is instant gets it from the installed dolfin cmake files.

[Jan Blechta]

Could you use this function

has_debug = compile_extension_module(
"""bool has_debug() {
#ifdef DEBUG
return true;
#else
return false;
#endif
}
""").has_debug

for now and file an issue to add has_debug to dolfin.cpp.common and assign to me?

[Tormod Landet]

Smart solution, will do!

Update: added issue #740 and commit af3119ebd58ac6aff6ddeeba5817dfd5cc30b24d

[Jan Blechta]

The fix merged into master. Could you confirm, @dokken, the the problem is fixed now?

[Johannes Ring]

I can confirm that the test is now skipped on a Release build and that the problem is fixed.

[Jan Blechta]

Thanks, @johannr.