Test package with check-bounds=no

New to Julia
1

Hi,

Is there a way to test a package with check-bounds=no?
It seems that it isnalways yes by default.

I was thinking about something like:

pkg> test --check-bounds=no

Thank you

2 
import Pkg
Pkg.test("MyPkg"; julia_args=`--check-bounds=auto`)
4 Likes
3

This was my first time seeing backticks used like that.

`--check-bounds=auto`

I was surprised to see that it wasn’t wrapped in double quotes, but I later discovered that julia_args wants a value of the type Union{Cmd, AbstractVector{<:AbstractString}}.

I didn’t know a Cmd could be non-executable.

3 Likes
4

Thank you all for your feedbacks.
I did not know that someone else could choose what the solution to my question is. (Just interesting to know)

1/ May I ask what is the rationale behind --check-bounds=auto instead of --check-bounds=no. It is not intuitive to me.

2/ Also what is the rationale behind having the REPL run with --check-bounds=no by default and package tests --check-bounds=yes by default? It would make more sense if they both run with the same options in the same session, no?

3/ Would it be nice to be able to do pkg> test --check-bounds=no or auto?

Thanks again.

1 Like
5

  1. If --check-bounds is no, that disables all boundschecking in the entire Julia process. That is considered way too unsafe, and so this option is not recommended.

  2. By default, the REPL runs with --check-bounds=auto. The auto option is nether yes nor no. When it’s auto, then Julia will bounds check by default, except in @inbounds blocks. This allows the user to selectively disable boundschecking in small sections of code that the user has manually reviewed.

  3. I think most people would want to run tests with bounds checking always enabled. This is because, if I make a mistake in some block that I have annotated @inbounds such that it reads out of bounds, I would want Julia to throw an exception in my test suite, instead of segfaulting or exhibiting undefined behaviour, which could lead to hard-to-diagnose bugs. Generally, I don’t care that my test suite runs a little bit slower. But I really do care that my test suite is able to pick up bugs in my code - after all, that’s what it’s there for.

4 Likes
6

Thank you @jakobnissen.
I think your points 2/ and 3/ answer and correct my assumptions of my question 2/.
My question 3/ was about a feature request in the REPL/package manager command.