is there a way to skip tests when using `cmake`

HDF5 Library
1

Building hdf5 using cmake/ctest takes a long time to run the 2553 tests. Is there a way to skip the tests when using the cmake or ctest command? Thanks!

2

Yes that is possible. For example use "ctest -R " to run the tests which satifies the regular expression . Another useful command is "ctest -E " which runs the tests which do not statify the specified regular expression. Furthermore, you can use “ctest --help” to find a more detailed explanation of the various ctest options. The mentioned commands are for Linux but I assume similar commands exist for MacOS and Windows.

3

If you are using the ctest script mode and our CTestScript.cmake file - yes there are multiple ways to accomplish skipping tests altogether. Or if you just want to run specific tests, see the previous post and the ctest --help. There are also configure options to not build any tests; BUILD_TESTING.

4

Thanks for the replies! I tried to uncomment the line

set (ADD_BUILD_OPTIONS "${ADD_BUILD_OPTIONS} -DBUILD_TESTING:BOOL=OFF")

in HDF5options.cmake previously for CMake-hdf5-1.10.5, but cmake terminated with an error message “No tests were found!!!” with an error code -1 (255). The error code caused my bash script to terminate before calling make -C build install (I have set -e in my bash script).

I also tried ctest -E '.*' and it also caused ctest to terminate with the same error message and an error code -1.

I guess my earlier question should be clarified that “is there a way for ctest to terminate gracefully (without an error code) when disabling all the tests when building HDF5?”

It seems that the answer is negative. I now appended || true after ctest to circumvent the error code. The kernel of the build script now looks like

ctest -S HDF5config.cmake,BUILD_GENERATOR=Unix,INSTALLDIR=$INSTALLDIR -C Release -V -O hdf5.log || true
make -C build install

The || true part is counterintuitive but is needed when running make -C build install followed by ctest with -e set in a bash script.

BTW, for HDF-4.2.15, uncommenting the line set (ADD_BUILD_OPTIONS "${ADD_BUILD_OPTIONS} -DBUILD_TESTING:BOOL=OFF") in HDF4options.cmake had no effect but ctest -E '.*' does disable the tests (with an error code). Maybe there is a bug in CTestScript.cmake of CMake-hdf-4.2.15?

5

Using our scripts there is another way, Look at the HDF5config.cmake file around line 200 - uncomment LOCAL_SKIP_TEST line.

1 Like
6

LOCAL_SKIP_TEST=TRUE is exactly what I need for HDF5. No more error code from ctest. Thanks!

This option was not available in CMake-hdf-4.2.15, but the tests in hdf4 run very quickly.

7

That “LOCAL_SKIP_TEST” option is an option for our CTestScript.cmake file. It may not be in the options file for HDF4 but could be added the same as it exists in HDF5Options.cmake.