automated (or otherwise) tests for graphics code?

[Ben Abbott]

On Thursday, October 16, 2008, at 01:45PM, "John W. Eaton" <jwe at bevo.che.wisc.edu> wrote:
>We seem to be having a lot of regressions in the graphics code
>lately, so maybe it is time to start thinking of some way to provide
>tests for these functions.  Unfortunately, I don't have any good way
>to do automatic tests for most of the graphics functions since the
>results are visual.  But at least we could have an informal agreement
>that no changes should be pushed unless a make check works and also
>all the graphics demos run successfully.  I know that running all the
>demos could be tedious, but it is also troublesome to have to keep
>chasing bugs after nearly every change in the plotting functions...
>
>To make it easier to run demos, I added a new function called rundemos
>that can be used this way:
>
>  rundemos plot
>
>to run all the demos in all the files in a given directory in the path
>(in this case, the plot subdirectory).  Without any arguments,
>rundemos runs all demos in all .m files in the load path.
>
>Comments?
>
>jwe
>

There have been some instances of coding errors respecting the graphics sources recently. These bugs could be identified by running tests/demos where no graphics are produced. Might the rundemos() script be able to run in that way and be added to "make check"?

In any event, your suggestion is a good one. I'll be using it often. 

Ben