Re: [css3-multicol] reference files

John Jansen wrote:

 > I was just looking through the multicol test suite, and it looks to
 > me like there is a problem with the reference files.
 > 
 > For example, the test for reduce-000 [1] and the reference [2] have
 > the exact same CSS in them. I would expect the ref to use something
 > other than columns in order to achieve the same effect as the
 > actual test file. This is also true in the basic reference file as
 > well [3].

 > [1] http://test.csswg.org/suites/css3-multicol/nightly-unstable/html4/multicol-reduce-000.htm
 > [2] http://test.csswg.org/suites/css3-multicol/nightly-unstable/html4/multicol-reduce-000-ref.htm
 > [3] http://test.csswg.org/suites/css3-multicol/nightly-unstable/html4/multicol-basic-ref.htm   

Right. These tests were originally written as a one-page humanistic test:

  http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-style/2010Aug/0278.html

It was suggested that the tests were converted to reftest format. I
was somewhat hesitant to do so:

  http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Member/w3c-css-wg/2010JulSep/0085.html

And, as you have noticed, some of the tests are not very meaningful
when converte to reftests. I don't know of a way to render the text
without using columns in a way that guarantees exactly the same line
breaking etc. 

Perhaps it's better to keep the one-page humanistic test as just that,
and to write new tests for automated testing. Here's the beginnings of
an automated test suite:

  http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-css-testsuite/2011Sep/0041.html

Cheers,

-h&kon
              Håkon Wium Lie                          CTO °þe®ª
howcome@opera.com                  http://people.opera.com/howcome