Megatest

    (if hosts (set! hosts (string-split hosts)))
    ;; set the megatest to be called on the remote host
    (if (not remote-megatest)(set! remote-megatest local-megatest)) ;; "megatest"))
    (set! mt-bindir-path (pathname-directory remote-megatest))
    (if launcher (set! launcher (string-split launcher)))
    ;; set up the run work area for this test
    (if (and (args:get-arg "-preclean") ;; user has requested to preclean for this run
	     (not (equal? (db:test-get-rundir testinfo) "n/a"))) ;; n/a is a placeholder and thus not a read dir
	(begin 
	     (not (member (db:test-get-rundir testinfo)(list "n/a" "/tmp/badname")))) ;; n/a is a placeholder and thus not a read dir
	(begin
	  (debug:print-info 0 "attempting to preclean directory " (db:test-get-rundir testinfo) " for test " test-name "/" item-path)
	  (runs:remove-test-directory #f testinfo #t))) ;; remove data only, do not perturb the record
    (set! diskpath (get-best-disk *configdat*))
    (if diskpath
	(let ((dat  (create-work-area run-id run-info keyvals test-id test-path diskpath test-name itemdat)))
	  (set! work-area (car dat))
	  (set! toptest-work-area (cadr dat))