At Monday 26 April 2010, Ralf Wildenhues <ralf.wildenh...@gmx.de>
wrote:
> * Stefano Lattarini wrote on Mon, Apr 26, 2010 at 12:15:33AM CEST:
> > --- a/tests/silent6.test
> > +++ b/tests/silent6.test
> >
> > @@ -99,5 +99,3 @@ $AUTOMAKE
> > grep 'AM_V_GEN' Makefile.in
> > $AUTOMAKE --force -Wno-all -Wportability
> > grep 'AM_V_GEN' Makefile.in
> > -
> > -:
>
> Please don't remove trailing ':' or 'Exit 0'. They exist for a
> reason: when somebody changes the test by adding a failing command
> after the last command, the test will spuriously fail because $?
> is nonzero at the end. Keeping a trailing ':' prevents that.
Good point, I dindn't think of that. What about an addition to
tests/README explicitly telling that apparently reduntant trailing
commands are there for a good reason indeed? My try is attached.
> (And no, please also don't newly introduce these things just for
> the heck of it either (i.e., when you wouldn't otherwise be
> editing the test), that's not the point.)
Yes, that would not be worth doing, since a missing trailing `:' does
not change the semantic of the test (while e.g. a missing `set -e'
does). Moreover, the absence of `:' could cause false positives only,
which are much much easier to spot than the false negatives that could
be introduced by a missing `set -e'.
By the way, I didn't understand if you're going to amend the patches
yourself, or if I should do that instead...
Regards,
Stefano
From 7e393d5192690d69ea03b19a46f20073b8d2eea6 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
From: Stefano Lattarini <stefano.lattar...@gmail.com>
Date: Mon, 26 Apr 2010 10:46:43 +0200
Subject: [PATCH] Extend tests/README (trailing `:' in test scripts)
* tests/README (section "Writing test cases", subsection "Do"):
Explain why apparently redundant trailing `:' and `Exit 0' in
test scripts can indeed be useful.
---
ChangeLog | 8 ++++++++
tests/README | 7 +++++++
2 files changed, 15 insertions(+), 0 deletions(-)
diff --git a/ChangeLog b/ChangeLog
index 71b0d9b..b587d29 100644
--- a/ChangeLog
+++ b/ChangeLog
@@ -1,3 +1,11 @@
+2010-04-26 Stefano Lattarini <stefano.lattar...@gmail.com>
+ Ralf Wildenhues <ralf.wildenh...@gmx.de>
+
+ Extend tests/README w.r.t. trailing `:' in test scripts.
+ * tests/README (section "Writing test cases", subsection "Do"):
+ Explain why apparently redundant trailing `:' and `Exit 0' in
+ test scripts can indeed be useful.
+
2010-04-25 Ralf Wildenhues <ralf.wildenh...@gmx.de>
Warning and error message formatting cleanups.
diff --git a/tests/README b/tests/README
index c34bfd8..7037591 100644
--- a/tests/README
+++ b/tests/README
@@ -129,6 +129,13 @@ Do
Use `set -e' to catch failures you might not have thought of.
+ End the test script with a `:' or `Exit 0'. Otherwise, when somebody
+ changes the test by adding a failing command after the last command,
+ the test will spuriously fail because $? is nonzero at the end.
+ Note that this is relevant also for tests using `set -e', if they
+ contain commands like "grep ... Makefile.in && Exit 1" (and there
+ are indeed a lot of such tests).
+
Use $ACLOCAL, $AUTOMAKE, $AUTOCONF, $AUTOUPDATE, $AUTOHEADER,
$PERL, $MAKE, $EGREP, and $FGREP, instead of the corresponding
commands.
--
1.6.5
