avocado-framework/avocado

=============
62.0 Farewell
=============

The Avocado team is proud to present another release: Avocado version
62.0, AKA "Farewell", is now available!

Release documentation: `Avocado 62.0
<http://avocado-framework.readthedocs.io/en/62.0/>`_

The major changes introduced on this version are listed below,
roughly categorized into major topics and intended audience:

Users/Test Writers
==================

* The ``avocado.Test.srcdir`` attribute has been removed, and with it,
  the ``AVOCADO_TEST_SRCDIR`` environment variable set by Avocado.
  This was done after a deprecation period, so tests should have been
  modified by now to make use of the :attr:`avocado.Test.workdir`
  instead.

* The ``avocado.Test.datadir`` attribute has been removed, and with
  it, the ``AVOCADO_TEST_DATADIR`` environment variable set by
  Avocado.  This was done after a deprecation period, so tests should
  have been modified by now to make use of the
  :func:`avocado.Test.get_data() <avocado.core.test.TestData.get_data>`
  instead.

* The :func:`avocado.utils.cpu.set_cpuidle_state` function now takes a
  boolean value for its ``disable`` parameter (while still allowing
  the previous integer (0/1) values to be used).  The goal is to have
  a more Pythonic interface, and to drop support legacy integer (0/1)
  use in the upcoming releases.

* :data:`avocado.utils.astring.ENCODING` is a new addition, and holds
  the encoding used on many other Avocado utilities.  If your test
  needs to convert between binary data and text, we recommend you use
  it as the default encoding (unless your test knows better).

* :func:`avocado.utils.astring.to_text` now supports setting the error
  handler.  This means that when a perfect decoding is not possible,
  users can choose how to handle it, like, for example, ignoring the
  offending characters.

* When running a process by means of the :mod:`avocado.utils.process`
  module utilities, the output of such a process is captured and can
  be logged in a ``stdout``/``stderr`` (or combined ``output``) file.
  The logging is now more resilient to decode errors, and will use the
  ``replace`` error handler by default.  Please note that the downside
  is that this *may* produce different content in those files, from
  what was actually output by the processes if decoding error
  conditions happen.

* The :func:`avocado.utils.astring.tabular_output` will now properly
  strip trailing whitespace from lines that don't contain data for all
  "columns".  This is also reflected in the (tabular) output of
  commands such as ``avocado list -v``.

Bug Fixes
=========

* Users of the :mod:`avocado.utils.service` module can now safely
  instantiate the service manager multiple times.  It was previously
  limited to a single instance per interpreter.

* The :mod:`avocado.utils.vmimage` library default usage broke with
  the release of Fedora 28, which added a different directory layout
  for its cloud images.  This has now been fixed and should allow for
  a successful ``image = avocado.utils.vmimage()`` usage.

Internal Changes
================

* Refactor of the :mod:`avocado.utils.asset` module, in preparation
  for new functionality.

* The :mod:`avocado.utils.cpu` module now treats reads/writes to/from
  ``/proc/*`` and ``/sys/*`` as binary data.

* The selftests for the :mod:`avocado.utils.cpu` module will now run
  under Python 3 (>= 3.6), due to more detailed checks of capable
  mock versions.

* The test that serves as the example for the :ref:`whiteboard
  <saving-test-generated-custom-data>` feature has been simplified, and
  the more complex test moved to ``selftests``.

* Package builds with ``make rpm`` are now done with the systemd-nspawn
  based chroot implementation for ``mock``.

For more information, please check out the complete
`Avocado changelog
<https://github.com/avocado-framework/avocado/compare/61.0...62.0>`_.

Release Meeting
===============

The Avocado release meetings are now open to the community via
Hangouts on Air.  The meetings are recorded and made available on the
`Avocado Test Framework YouTube channel
<https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC-RVZ_HFTbEztDM7wNY4NfA>`_.

For this release, you can watch the meeting on `this link
<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cJXt0kzQta4>`_.

----

| Sprint theme: https://trello.com/c/4KtpSeGT/1305-sprint-theme-farewell-2009