Correct workflow for testing julia package locally on multiple versions of Base at once

Question

Julia packages very often support several versions of Julia. The standard workflow makes changes to ~/.julia/v0.x/PackageName and then runs Pkg.test("PackageName") in the package, but this only checks the package in any version of Julia 0.x, and not in other versions. Other versions cannot see local changes, since modifications were made only in the 0.x folder. I currently rely on Travis for fishing problems, but turnaround times are much slower than tests at the local level.

What is the correct method for testing the package on several versions of Julia on the local computer? Symbolic links?

Answer 1

Use symbolic links.

I use symbolic links with julia v0.3 . It works quite well. Usually I should check the package in the lower version directory (say 0.4) and have symbolic links in the directories for 0.5 and 0.6. I do this for all packages that I am actively working on. Everything else is duplicated as part of the Pkg.add / clone process.

This works, of course, only when you have a separate branch of your package (a typical wizard) that supports all versions of julia through Compat. In cases where you have different branches for different versions of julia, you need to have separate checks for each version of julia.