[Debian-med-packaging] Bug#747337: Random number generator and regression tests (Re: Python-pysam for unstable?)

[Andreas Tille]

Hi,

On Mon, Jul 13, 2015 at 06:06:37AM +0900, Charles Plessy wrote:
> > That is interesting. For bedtools, is that a problem with the test suite or
> > with the packaging? I didn't think that a package could be uploaded to
> > somewhere besides experimental while it is known to be failing tests.
> 
> Well, the answer is in the BTS :)
> 
>     https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=747337#24
> 
> For the impatient, the main problem is that the random number generator used
> does not produce the same result on Linux and on OSX, even with the same seed.
> (I know that other programs like R definitely manage to do so).
> 
> Actually, if someobody has a hint, it would be welcome upstream.
> 
>     https://github.com/arq5x/bedtools2/issues/84

While this is certainly no hint I think a preliminary solution would be
to use a comparison dataset on Linux to compare the test result with.
we could create it, provide it as a patch an run the test against this.

I personally do not have any experiences with random number generators
on different architectures.  My only idea would be to ask on debian-mentors
to possibly get some hints.

Kind regards

        Andreas.

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