0_34_0.rst

===========================
0.34.0 The Hour of the Star
===========================

Hello to all test enthusiasts out there, specially to those that
cherish, care or are just keeping an eye on the greenest test
framework there is: Avocado release 0.34.0, aka The Hour of the Star,
is now out!

The main changes in Avocado for this release are:

* A complete overhaul of the logging and output implementation. This
  means that all Avocado output uses the standard Python logging library
  making it very consistent and easy to understand [1].

* Based on the logging and output overhaul, the command line test
  runner is now very flexible with its output. A user can choose
  exactly what should be output. Examples include application output
  only, test output only, both application and test output or any
  other combination of the builtin streams. The user visible command
  line option that controls this behavior is `--show`, which is an
  application level option, that is, it's available to all avocado
  commands. [2]

* Besides the builtin streams, test writers can use the standard
  Python logging API to create new streams. These streams can be shown
  on the command line as mentioned before, or persisted automatically
  in the job results by means of the `--store-logging-stream` command
  line option. [3][4]

* The new `avocado.core.safeloader` module, intends to make it easier
  to to write new test loaders for various types of Python
  code. [5][6]

* Based on the new `avocado.core.safeloader` module, a contrib script
  called `avocado-find-unittests`, returns the name of
  unittest.TestCase based tests found on a given number of Python
  source code files. [7]

* Avocado is now able to run its own selftest suite. By leveraging the
  `avocado-find-unittests` contrib script and the External Runner [8]
  feature. A Makefile target is available, allowing developers to run
  `make selfcheck` to have the selftest suite run by Avocado. [9]

* Partial Python 3 support. A number of changes were introduced that
  allow concurrent Python 2 and 3 support on the same code base.  Even
  though the support for Python 3 is still *incomplete*, the `avocado`
  command line application can already run some limited commands at
  this point.

* Asset fetcher utility library. This new utility library, and
  INSTRUMENTED test feature, allows users to transparently request
  external assets to be used in tests, having them cached for later
  use. [10]

* Further cleanups in the public namespace of the avocado Test class.

* [BUG FIX] Input from the local system was being passed to remote
  systems when running tests with either in remote systems or VMs.

* [BUG FIX] HTML report stability improvements, including better
  Unicode handling and support for other versions of the Pystache
  library.

* [BUG FIX] Atomic updates of the "latest" job symlink, allows for
  more reliable user experiences when running multiple parallel jobs.

* [BUG FIX] The avocado.core.data_dir module now dynamically checks
  the configuration system when deciding where the data directory
  should be located. This allows for later updates, such as when
  giving one extra `--config` parameter in the command line, to be
  applied consistently throughout the framework and test code.

* [MAINTENANCE] The CI jobs now run full checks on each commit on
  any proposed PR, not only on its topmost commit. This gives higher
  confidence that a commit in a series is not causing breakage that
  a later commit then inadvertently fixes.

For a complete list of changes please check the Avocado changelog[11].

For Avocado-VT, please check the full Avocado-VT changelog[12].

Avocado Videos
--------------

As yet another way to let users know about what's available in
Avocado, we're introducing short videos with very targeted content on
our very own YouTube channel:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCP4xob52XwRad0bU_8V28rQ

The first video available demonstrates a couple of new features
related to the advanced logging mechanisms, introduced on this
release: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Ur_p5p6YiQ

Install avocado
---------------

Instructions are available in our documentation on how to install
either with packages or from source[13].

Updated RPM packages are be available in the project repos for
Fedora 22, Fedora 23, EPEL 6 and EPEL 7.

Happy hacking and testing!

----

| [1] http://avocado-framework.readthedocs.org/en/0.34.0/LoggingSystem.html
| [2] http://avocado-framework.readthedocs.org/en/0.34.0/LoggingSystem.html#tweaking-the-ui
| [3] http://avocado-framework.readthedocs.org/en/0.34.0/LoggingSystem.html#storing-custom-logs
| [4] http://avocado-framework.readthedocs.org/en/0.34.0/WritingTests.html#advanced-logging-capabilities
| [5] https://github.com/avocado-framework/avocado/blob/0.34.0/avocado/core/safeloader.py
| [6] http://avocado-framework.readthedocs.org/en/0.34.0/api/core/avocado.core.html#module-avocado.core.safeloader
| [7] https://github.com/avocado-framework/avocado/blob/0.34.0/contrib/avocado-find-unittests
| [8] http://avocado-framework.readthedocs.org/en/0.34.0/GetStartedGuide.html#running-tests-with-an-external-runner
| [9] https://github.com/avocado-framework/avocado/blob/0.34.0/Makefile#L33
| [10] http://avocado-framework.readthedocs.org/en/0.34.0/WritingTests.html#fetching-asset-files
| [11] https://github.com/avocado-framework/avocado/compare/0.33.0...0.34.0
| [12] https://github.com/avocado-framework/avocado-vt/compare/0.33.0...0.34.0
| [13] http://avocado-framework.readthedocs.org/en/latest/GetStartedGuide.html#installing-avocado
| Sprint Theme: https://trello.com/c/QIbM3NvY/590-sprint-theme