Use Firebird embedded for the tests?

[fdcastel]

The current tests rely on Firebird 5 being installed and running as a service.

What if we switched to using Firebird Embedded instead?

That would allow us

• to run the test suite against multiple Firebird versions.
• accelerate the workflows, as we would only need to cache the required files (eliminating the need for installations in the CI environment).

If approved, I’d be happy to open pull requests to explore this.

[asfernandes]

I don't think embedded is needed for that. A job matrix could be used and each one run concurrently for a version.

But I'm not sure if that should be done. Isn't then we testing Firebird instead of testing the driver?

We use the API and it should work identically in all versions. If not, in 99% cases it should be a bug in Firebird, not in this project.

[fdcastel]

I don't think embedded is needed for that. A job matrix could be used and each one run concurrently for a version.

Maybe I didn’t phrase that clearly. But, yes, I was thinking about using a job matrix for the multiple runs.

That said... Even with a job matrix -- and everything else being equal -- wouldn’t using the embedded version allow us to cache it in GitHub Actions Cache, instead of installing Firebird via scripts on every CI run?

We use the API and it should work identically in all versions. If not, in 99% cases it should be a bug in Firebird, not in this project.

Understood. Agreed.