========================
51.0 The White Mountains
========================

The Avocado team is proud to present another release: Avocado version
51.0, aka, "The White Mountains" now available!

Release documentation: `Avocado 51.0
<http://avocado-framework.readthedocs.io/en/51.0/>`_

The major changes introduced on this version are listed below,
roughly categorized into major topics and intended audience:

Users/Test Writers
==================

* Users will be given more information when a test reference is not
  recognized by a given test loader.

* Users can now choose to proceed with the execution of a job even if
  one or more test references have not been resolved by one Avocado
  test loader (AKA a test resolver).  By giving the command line option
  ``--ignore-missing-references=on``, jobs will be executed (provided
  the job's test suite has at least one test).

* The ``yaml-to-mux`` varianter implementation (the only one at this
  point) is now an optional plugin.  Basically, this means that users
  deploying this (and later) version of Avocado, should also
  explicitly install it.  For ``pip`` users, the module name is
  ``avocado-framework-plugin-varianter-yaml-to-mux``.  The RPM package
  name is ``python-avocado-plugins-varianter-yaml-to-mux``.

* Users can now choose in which order the job will execute tests (from
  its suite) and variants.  Previously, users would always get one
  test executed with all its variants, than the second tests with all
  variants, and so on.  Now, users can give the
  ``--execution-order=tests-per-variant`` command line option and all
  tests on the job's test suite will be executed with the first
  variant, then all tests will be executed with the second variant and
  so on.  The original (still the current default behavior) can also
  be available explicitly selected with the command line option
  ``--execution-order=variants-per-test``.

* Test methods on parent classes are now found upon the use of the new
  `recursive <docstring-directive-recursive>` docstring
  directive.  While ``:avocado: enable`` enables Avocado to find
  INSTRUMENTED tests that do not look like one (more details :ref:`here
  <docstring-directive-enable-disable>`), ``recursive`` will do that
  while also finding test methods present on parent classes.

* The docstring directives now have a properly defined :ref:`format
  <docstring-directive-rules>`.  This applies to ``:avocado: tags=``
  docstring directives, used for :ref:`categorizing tests
  <categorizing-tests>`.

* Users can now see the tags set on ``INSTRUMENTED`` test when listing
  tests with the ``-V`` (verbose) option.

Internal Changes
================

* The ``jobdata`` file responsible for keeping track of the variants
  on a given job (saved under ``$JOB_RESULTS/jobdata/multiplex``) is
  now called ``variants.json``.  As it names indicates, it's now a JSON
  file that contains the *result* of the variants generation.  The
  previous file format was based on Python's pickle, which was not
  reliable across different Avocado versions and/or environments.

* Avocado is one step closer to Python 3 compatibility.  The basic
  ``avocado`` command line application runs, and loads some plugins.
  Still, the very much known ``byte`` versus ``string`` issues plague
  the code enough to prevent tests from being loaded and executed.  We
  anticipate that once the ``byte`` versus ``string`` is tackled, most
  functionality will be available.

* Avocado now uniformly uses :data:`avocado.core.output.LOG_UI` for
  outputting to the UI and :data:`avocado.core.output.LOG_JOB` to
  output to the job log.

* Some classes previously regarded as "test types" to flag error
  conditions have now be rewritten to *not* inherit from
  :class:`avocado.core.test.Test`.  It's now easier to identify real
  Avocado test types.

Improvements for Developers
===========================

* Developers now will also get Python "eggs" cleaned up when running
  ``make clean``.

* Developers can now run ``make requirements-plugins`` to (attempt to)
  install external plugins dependencies, provided they are located at
  the same base directory where Avocado is.

For more information, please check out the complete
`Avocado changelog
<https://github.com/avocado-framework/avocado/compare/50.0...51.0>`_.

Release Meeting
===============

The Avocado release meetings are now open to the community via
Hangouts on Air.  The meetings are recorded and made available on the
`Avocado Test Framework YouTube channel
<https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC-RVZ_HFTbEztDM7wNY4NfA>`_.

For this release, you can watch the meeting on `this link
<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NWfOvo2gWhE>`_.

Next Release
============

The next Avocado release, 52.0, will be a LTS (Long Term Stability
Release).  For more information please read
:ref:`rfc-long-term-stability`.

----

| Sprint theme: https://trello.com/c/dDou6uk0/1034-sprint-theme-the-white-mountains-the-tripods