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15.2 Test Evaluation

Some properly installed and fully functional PostgreSQL installations can “fail” some of these regression tests due to platform-specific artifacts such as varying floating-point representation and message wording. The tests are currently evaluated using a simple diff comparison against the outputs generated on a reference system, so the results are sensitive to small system differences. When a test is reported as “failed”, always examine the differences between expected and actual results; you may well find that the differences are not significant. Nonetheless, we still strive to maintain accurate reference files across all supported platforms, so it can be expected that all tests pass.

The actual outputs of the regression tests are in files in the ‘src/test/regress/results’ directory. The test script uses diff to compare each output file against the reference outputs stored in the ‘src/test/regress/expected’ directory. Any differences are saved for your inspection in ‘src/test/regress/regression.diffs’. (Or you can run diff yourself, if you prefer.)

If for some reason a particular platform generates a “failure” for a given test, but inspection of the output convinces you that the result is valid, you can add a new comparison file to silence the failure report in future test runs. See section 15.3 Variant Comparison Files for details.