[FFmpeg-devel] Test coverage for libavfilter negotiation

[Michael Niedermayer]

Hi Nicolas

On Wed, Jun 04, 2025 at 09:24:23AM +0200, Nicolas George wrote:
> Hi.
> 
> As I explained earlier in the “Subtitle Filtering Ramp-Up” thread:
> 
> Any non-trivial progress on libavfilter requires touching the format
> negotiation code. The format negotiation code is very fragile and has
> almost no test coverage at all.
> 
> Touching it as is would be suicidal.
> 
> Therefore, any non-trivial progress on libavfilter requires first adding
> test coverage on the negotiation process.
> 
> I started a long time ago:
> https://lists.ffmpeg.org/pipermail/ffmpeg-devel/2022-August/299593.html
> but it is extremely boring work, I got bored and I could not take some
> air working on AVWriter. I do not intend to do boring things unless I
> can have some freedom doing fun things too.
> 
> It is boring, but it is not very hard. Which is why I think it would be
> a good candidate to throw money at, if we have money that we can throw
> at needs.
> 
> It could take the form of bounties: one line of coverage ⇒ one amount of
> money. It could work because there is an objective criterion: the test
> must pass as is but fail if we artificially remove or alter the line of
> code it covers.
> 
> I can advise on the technical matter, I can review patches, list parts
> of the code that require coverage and explain what they do. But I do not
> know how do do the money part.

I think this whole idea is good, please make sure it is added to the STF page
and that someone does all the submission and paper stuff (if no objections)

thx

[...]
-- 
Michael     GnuPG fingerprint: 9FF2128B147EF6730BADF133611EC787040B0FAB

Nations do behave wisely once they have exhausted all other alternatives. 
-- Abba Eban
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