[Webtest] Any way to free memory?

[Marc Guillemot]

Hi Lisa,

what is the OS of the build server? If Linux (or other unix), what is the value of the LANG env variable?

Marc.

Lisa Crispin wrote:
> We found the reason for our mysterious problem. The results.xml file was 
> getting huge, it was something like 120 meg, only on our build server 
> (when running the same test on windows, results.xml is 1.3 
> meg).  Writing to the results.xml file was apparently what chewed up the 
> memory. 
>  
> On only our build server, no where else, when a particular verifyPdfText 
> was executed, a bunch of binary data got written into the result.xml 
> file.  The text we were verifying was a string I had copied in from the 
> pdf file.  It contained some double quotes which were funky double 
> quotes.  It has worked for months just fine, but we just installed a new 
> version of Windward (which generates the pdf files) which uses different 
> itext libraries.  I can only think this is the reason.  The solution was 
> to take the part of the string with the quotes out of the file. 
>  
> We have seen other differences in behavior between the pdf files and 
> VerifyPdfText based on platform.  But only with this latest version of 
> Windward.  We can work around it, it is just mystifying.  What would 
> cause binary data to be written to a results.xml file - in the middle of 
> a line, instead of this:
>  
> <parameter name="*text*" value="*The name and address of the 
> Administrator can be found on ?Plan Highlights? attachment.*" />
>  
> We got this:
> <parameter name="*text*" value="*The name and address of the 
> Administrator can be found on [a bunch of weird binary data, megabytes 
> of it!]*
> ** 
> *thanks,*
> *Lisa*
> 
>     -------------- Original message from lisa.crispin@att.net (Lisa
>     Crispin): --------------
> 
>     I will give that a try, thanks.
>     -- Lisa
> 
>         -------------- Original message from "Ji Kim" <Ji.Kim@cnet.com>:
>         --------------
> 
>         Have you tried using separate result files to make them smaller?
>         ( resultfile= in <config>)
>         I haven't read the mailing list for sometime. I am not up to date what has been changing.
>          
>         Ji
>         ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>         *From:* webtest-admin@gate2.canoo.com
>         [mailto:webtest-admin@gate2.canoo.com] *On Behalf Of *Lisa Crispin
>         *Sent:* Thursday, April 21, 2005 5:44 PM
>         *To:* webtest@gate2.canoo.com
>         *Subject:* [Webtest] Any way to free memory?
> 
>         We seem to have hit a threshold on our build server (dual
>         processor amd running Red Hat Fedora Core 3, 2 gig memory). 
>         When our test suite is running, the java process grows to 1.1
>         gig, then the suite just seems to hang.  It has problems writing
>         results.xml, which has grown to 20meg at this point (when it
>         hangs).  We can run the same suite on other machines, it runs to
>         completion, but also the process grows - up to 600 meg on a
>         Windows machine.  This would indicate that the damn thing just
>         grows and grows and grows. 
>          
>         Below is an excerpt from our build.xml.  We have 43 scripts of
>         various sizes. It would be nice if we could free memory in
>         between each script.  Is there a way to do this?  We've already
>         bumped up our ant process to 800 meg of memory, and done every
>         suggestion we found in the mailing list archives that seemed
>         relevant. 
>          
>         Please help, we've hit a wall and we are dependent on these
>         tests running every night.
>          
>             <target name="run-nightly-canoo" depends="canoo-taskdef"
>         description="Runs c
>         anoo tests in nightly build only (requires running application).">
>                 <delete dir="${resultsPath}"/>
>                 <mkdir dir="${resultsPath}"/>
>                 <ant
>         antfile="${test.webtest.scripts.dir}/PlanEstTourTest.xml"/>
>                 <ant
>         antfile="${test.webtest.scripts.dir}/CSRUpdUserPsw.xml"/>
>          
>         Thank you!
>         -- Lisa
>