script to pre-build all commits in a git-bisect, and use them during testing

Problem: it's annoying to have to build each commit when
git-bisect'ing for something that isn't being tested automatically (so
no git bisect run).

Solution: https://github.com/bkerin/git-batch-bisect

It has an interface almost exactly like native git-bisect so it's super easy to learn but it handles a couple additional commands to create worktrees for all the commits, parallel build, and test in them.

From the README:

     git batch-bisect start bad_commit good_commit
     git batch-bisect runinall 'autoreconf --install && ./configure && make'
     git batch-bisect runincurrent ./test_program
     git batch-bisect good
     git batch-bisect runincurrent ./test_program
     git batch-bisect bad
     # etc.

I'd be grateful for any feedback on this script. I don't actually bisect all that often, so it's only tested on one real-world project so far. I thought it might live in contrib someday if it's useful to anyone else.

Britton

Britton Kerin <britton.kerin@gmail.com> writes:

So, because "git bisect run" would not be usable for whatever reason to run a "build and then test" from the command line, you would build all revisions using

    git batch-bisect runinall 'autoreconf --install && ./configure && make'

before starting to test any revision, and then after building everything, you would do:

    git batch-bisect runincurrent ./test_program
    git batch-bisect good
    git batch-bisect runincurrent ./test_program
    git batch-bisect bad
    ...

where ./test_program cannot signal if it is good or bad mechanically (e.g., by exiting with non-zero status for failure) but the testers need to judge the good/bad manually before they can say "git batch-bisect good/bad", I presume.

It's an interesting workaround for a test program that cannot be automated. You are willing to waste CPU cycles and diskspace to build upfront and hold the build products for all N revisions in the range, where with bisection you would have to build far fewer revisions (which is the point of bisection), to optimize for developer/tester latency, which tends to be more expensive. The trade-off may make good sense.