[FFmpeg-devel] Test coverage for libavfilter negotiation

[FFmpeg-devel] Test coverage for libavfilter negotiation

[Nicolas George]

Hi.

As I explained earlier in the “Subtitle Filtering Ramp-Up” thread:

Any non-trivial progress on libavfilter requires touching the format
negotiation code. The format negotiation code is very fragile and has
almost no test coverage at all.

Touching it as is would be suicidal.

Therefore, any non-trivial progress on libavfilter requires first adding
test coverage on the negotiation process.

I started a long time ago:
https://lists.ffmpeg.org/pipermail/ffmpeg-devel/2022-August/299593.html
but it is extremely boring work, I got bored and I could not take some
air working on AVWriter. I do not intend to do boring things unless I
can have some freedom doing fun things too.

It is boring, but it is not very hard. Which is why I think it would be
a good candidate to throw money at, if we have money that we can throw
at needs.

It could take the form of bounties: one line of coverage ⇒ one amount of
money. It could work because there is an objective criterion: the test
must pass as is but fail if we artificially remove or alter the line of
code it covers.

I can advise on the technical matter, I can review patches, list parts
of the code that require coverage and explain what they do. But I do not
know how do do the money part.

Regards,

-- 
  Nicolas George
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Re: [FFmpeg-devel] Test coverage for libavfilter negotiation

[Michael Niedermayer]

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Hi Nicolas

On Wed, Jun 04, 2025 at 09:24:23AM +0200, Nicolas George wrote:
> Hi.
> 
> As I explained earlier in the “Subtitle Filtering Ramp-Up” thread:
> 
> Any non-trivial progress on libavfilter requires touching the format
> negotiation code. The format negotiation code is very fragile and has
> almost no test coverage at all.
> 
> Touching it as is would be suicidal.
> 
> Therefore, any non-trivial progress on libavfilter requires first adding
> test coverage on the negotiation process.
> 
> I started a long time ago:
> https://lists.ffmpeg.org/pipermail/ffmpeg-devel/2022-August/299593.html
> but it is extremely boring work, I got bored and I could not take some
> air working on AVWriter. I do not intend to do boring things unless I
> can have some freedom doing fun things too.
> 
> It is boring, but it is not very hard. Which is why I think it would be
> a good candidate to throw money at, if we have money that we can throw
> at needs.
> 
> It could take the form of bounties: one line of coverage ⇒ one amount of
> money. It could work because there is an objective criterion: the test
> must pass as is but fail if we artificially remove or alter the line of
> code it covers.
> 
> I can advise on the technical matter, I can review patches, list parts
> of the code that require coverage and explain what they do. But I do not
> know how do do the money part.

I think this whole idea is good, please make sure it is added to the STF page
and that someone does all the submission and paper stuff (if no objections)

thx

[...]
-- 
Michael     GnuPG fingerprint: 9FF2128B147EF6730BADF133611EC787040B0FAB

Nations do behave wisely once they have exhausted all other alternatives. 
-- Abba Eban

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