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System testing in scientific numerical software frameworks using the example of DUNE
Abstract We present dune-testtools, a collection of tools for system testing in scientific software using the example of the Distributed Unified Numerics Environment (Dune). Testing is acknowledged as indispensible support for scientific software development and assurance of software quality to produce trustworthy simulation results. Most of the time, testing in software frameworks developed at research facilities is restricted to either unit testing or simple benchmark programs. However, in a modern numerical software framework, the number of possible feature combinations constituting a program is vast. System testing, meaning testing within a possible end user environment also emulating variability, is necessary to assess software quality and reproducibility of numerical results. We provide an easy-to-use interface taking workload off developers and administrators in open-source scientific numerical software framework projects. In our approach, the large number of possible combinations is reduced using the scientific expert knowledge of developers to identify the practically relevant combinations. Our approach to system testing is designed to be integrated in the workflow of a research software developing scientist.
