avocado-framework/avocado

================
90.0 Bladerunner
================

The Avocado team is proud to present another release: Avocado 90.0,
AKA "Bladerunner", is now available!

Release documentation: `Avocado 90.0
<http://avocado-framework.readthedocs.io/en/90.0/>`_

Important Announcement
======================

The Avocado team is planning to switch the default runner, from the
implementation most people currently use (internally simply called
``runner``), to the newer architecture and implementation called
``nrunner``.  This is scheduled to happen on version 91.0 (the next
release).

**Users installing and relying on the latest Avocado release will be
impacted by this change and should plan accordingly.**

To keep using the current (soon to be legacy) runner, you **must** set
the ``--test-runner=runner`` command line option (or the equivalent
``test_runner`` configuration option, under section ``[run]``).

Known issues are being tracked on our GitHub project page, with the
``nrunner`` tag, and new issue reports are appreciated.

.. tip:: To select the ``nrunner`` on this release (90.0 and earlier),
         run ``avocado run --test-runner=nrunner``.

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

* Avocado's safeloader (the system used to find Python based tests
  without executing them) received a major overhaul and now supports:

 1. Multi-level module imports, such as ``from my.base.test import
    Test`` where a project may contain a ``my/base`` directory
    structure containing ``test.py`` that defines a custom ``Test``
    class.

 2. Support for following the import/inheritance hierarchy when a
    module contains an import for a given symbol, instead of the
    actual ``class`` definition of a symbol.

 3. Considers coroutines (AKA ``async def``) as valid tests, reducing
    the number of boiler plate code necessary for tests of ``asyncio``
    based code.

 4. Supports class definitions (containing tests or not) that use a
    typing hint with subscription, commonly used in generics.

* Test parameters given with ``-p`` are now support when using the
  ``nrunner``.

* All status server URIs in the configuration are now respected for
  ``nrunner`` executions.

* The resolver plugins now have access to the job/suite configuration.

* The data directories now have less heuristics and are now more
  predictable and consistent with the configuration set.

* The JSON results (``results.json``) now contain a field with the
  path of the test log file.

* The root logger for Python's :mod:`logging` should no longer be
  impacted by Avocado's own logging initialization and clean up (which
  now limits itself to ``avocado.*`` loggers).

Bug Fixes
=========

* The ``whiteboard`` file and data are now properly saved when using
  the ``nrunner``

* The Podman spawner will now respect the Podman binary set in the job
  configuration.

* The date and time fields shown on some result formats, such as in
  the HTML report, now are proper dates/times, and not Python's
  "monotonic" date/time.

* The correct failure reason for tests executed with the ``nrunner``
  are now being captured, instead of a possible exception caused by a
  error within the runner itself.

Utility APIs
============

* :mod:`avocado.utils.ssh` now respects the username set when copying
  files via ``scp``.

Misc Changes
============

* Update of all executable script's "shebangs" to ``/usr/bin/env
  python3`` from ``/usr/bin/env python``

* Better handling of ``KeyboardInterrupt`` exceptions on early stages
  of the Avocado execution.

* The list of external resources was updated adding a number of
  projects that either are extensions of Avocado, or that use Avocado
  for their testing needs.

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

* ``selftests/check_tmp_dirs`` will only check for directories, ignoring files.

* The examples in the documentation no longer contain user references
  to specific users, using generic names and paths instead.

* A duplicated step has been removed from pre-release test plan.

* A setuptools command to build the man page was added.

* Updates to the Travis CI jobs, testing only Python 3.9 on s390x,
  ppc64le, and arm64, following the move to GHA.

* A weekly GHA CI job was introduced.

* Better standardization of the messages that ``nrunner`` runners
  generate by means of new utility methods.

* Allows the exclusion of optional plugins when doing ``python3
  setup.py develop``.

For more information, please check out the complete
`Avocado changelog
<https://github.com/avocado-framework/avocado/compare/89.0...90.0>`_.