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  • Hash : c99835be
    Author : Stefano Lattarini
    Date : 2012-02-25T14:38:22

    docs: improve 'dist-hook' documentation
    
    * doc/automake.texi (The dist Hook): Explicitly document the fact
    that the dist-hook should account for the case where the source
    tree is read-only, mostly for the benefit of distcheck.  Since
    we are at it, do some minor unrelated rewordings, and remove
    obsolescent advice.  Motivated by the discussion on automake
    bug#10878.
    * tests/disthook.test: New test.
    * tests/disthook-perms.test: Delete as obsolete.
    * tests/list-of-tests.mk: Adjust.
    

  • README

  • 			    The Automake test suite
    
    
    User interface
    ==============
    
    
    Running the tests
    -----------------
    
      To run all tests:
    
        make -k check
    
      You can use '-jN' for faster completion (it even helps on a
      uniprocessor system, due to unavoidable sleep delays, as
      noted below).
    
      To rerun only failed tests:
    
        make -k recheck
    
      To run only tests that are newer than their last results:
    
        make -k check RECHECK_LOGS=
    
      To run only selected tests:
    
        make -k check TESTS="foo.test bar.test"             (GNU make)
        env TESTS="foo.test bar.test" make -e -k check      (non-GNU make)
    
     To run the tests in cross-compilation mode, you should first configure
     the automake source tree to a cross-compilation setup.  For example, to
     run with a Linux-to-MinGW cross compiler, you will need something like
     this:
    
       ./configure --host i586-mingw32msvc --build i686-pc-linux-gnu
    
     To avoid possible spurious error, you really have to *explicitly* specify
     '--build' in addition to '--host'; the 'lib/config.guess' script can help
     determine the correct value to pass to '--build'.
     Then you can just run the testsuite in the usual way, and the test cases
     using a compiler should automatically use a cross-compilation setup.
    
    
    Interpretation
    --------------
    
      Successes:
        PASS  - success
        XFAIL - expected failure
    
      Failures:
        FAIL  - failure
        XPASS - unexpected success
    
      Other:
        SKIP  - skipped tests (third party tools not available)
        ERROR - some unexpected error condition
    
    
    Getting details from failures
    -----------------------------
    
      By default, verbose output of a test 'foo.test' or 'foo.tap' is
      retained in the log file 'foo.log'.  A summary log is created in
      the file 'test-suite.log'.
    
      You can limit the set of files using the TESTS variable, and enable
      detailed test output at the end of the test run with the VERBOSE
      variable:
    
        env VERBOSE=x TESTS='first.test second.test ...' make -e check
    
      You can also run the tests by hand, as explained in the next subsection.
    
    
    About the tests
    ---------------
    
      There are two kinds of tests in the Automake testsuite (both implemented
      as shell scripts).  The scripts with the '.test' suffix are "simple"
      tests, their outcome completely determined by their exit status.  Those
      with the '.tap' suffix use the TAP protocol.  If you want to run a test
      by hand, you can do so directly if it is a simple test:
    
        ./nogzip.test
    
      (it will be verbose by default), while if it is a TAP test you can pass
      it to your preferred TAP runner, as in e.g.:
    
        prove --verbose --merge ./add-missing.tap
    
      The tests can also be run directly in a VPATH build, as with:
    
        /path/to/srcdir/tests/nogzip.test
        prove --verbose --merge /path/to/srcdir/tests/add-missing.tap
    
    
    Supported shells
    ----------------
    
      By default, the tests are run by the $SHELL detected at configure
      time.  They also take care to re-execute themselves with that shell,
      unless told not to.  So, to run the tests with a different shell, say
      '/path/to/another/sh', the user must use:
    
        AM_TESTS_REEXEC=no /path/to/another/sh ./foo.test
        AM_TESTS_REEXEC=no prove -v -e /path/to/another/sh ./bar.tap
    
      to run a test directly, and:
    
        make check LOG_COMPILER=/path/to/sh         (GNU make)
        LOG_COMPILER=/path/to/sh make -e check      (non-GNU make)
    
      to run the test(s) through the makefile test driver.
    
      The test scripts are written with portability in mind, so that they
      should run with any decent Bourne-compatible shell.
    
      However, some care must be used with Zsh, since, when not directly
      started in Bourne-compatibility mode, it has some incompatibilities
      in the handling of $0 which conflict with our usage.  Our testsuite
      can automatically work around these incompatibilities when a version
      4.3 or later of Zsh is used, but unfortunately not when an older
      version of Zsh is used.  Thus, if you want to run a test script, say
      foo.test, with Zsh 4.2, you *can't* simply do "zsh foo.test", but
      you *must* resort to:
    
        AM_TESTS_REEXEC=no zsh -o no_function_argzero foo.test
    
      Note that this problem does not occur if Zsh is executed through
      a symlink with a basename of 'sh', since in that case Zsh starts
      in Bourne compatibility mode.  So you should be perfectly safe
      when /bin/sh is Zsh, even a it's version < 4.3.
    
    
    Reporting failures
    ------------------
    
      Send verbose output, i.e., the contents of test-suite.log, of failing
      tests to <bug-automake@gnu.org>, along with the usual version numbers
      (which Automake, which Autoconf, which operating system, which make
      version, which shell, etc.)
    
    
    
    Writing test cases
    ==================
    
    
    Do
    --
    
      If you plan to fix a bug, write the test case first.  This way you'll
      make sure the test catches the bug, and that it succeeds once you have
      fixed the bug.
    
      Add a copyright/license paragraph.
    
      Explain what the test does.
    
      Cite the PR number (if any), and the original reporter (if any), so
      we can find or ask for information if needed.
    
      If a test checks examples or idioms given in the documentation, make
      sure the documentation reference them appropriately in comments, as in:
        @c Keep in sync with autodist-config-headers.test.
        @example
        ...
        @end example
    
      Use "required=..." for required tools.  Do not explicitly require
      tools which can be taken for granted because they're listed in the
      GNU Coding Standards (for example, 'gzip').
    
      Include ./defs in every test script (see existing tests for examples
      of how to do this).
    
      Use the 'skip_' function to skip tests, with a meaningful message if
      possible.  Where convenient, use the 'warn_' function to print generic
      warnings, the 'fail_' function for test failures, and the 'fatal_'
      function for hard errors.  In case a hard error is due to a failed
      set-up of a test scenario, you can use the 'framework_fail_' function
      instead.
    
      For tests that use the 'parallel-tests' Automake option, set the shell
      variable 'am_parallel_tests' to "yes" before including ./defs.  For
      tests that are *not* meant to work with the 'parallel-tests' Automake
      option (these should be very very few), set the shell variable
      'am_parallel_tests' to "no" before including ./defs.
    
      Some tests in the Automake testsuite are auto-generated; those tests
      might have custom extensions, but their basename (that is, with such
      extension stripped) is expected to end with "-w" string, optionally
      followed by decimal digits.  For example, the name of a valid
      auto-generated test can be 'color-w.test' or 'tap-signal-w09.tap'.
      Please don't name hand-written tests in a way that could cause them
      to be confused with auto-generated tests; for example, 'u-v-w.test'
      or 'option-w0.tap' are *not* valid name for hand-written tests.
    
      ./defs brings in some commonly required files, and sets a skeleton
      configure.ac.  If possible, append to this file.  In some cases
      you'll have to overwrite it, but this should be the exception.  Note
      that configure.ac registers Makefile.in but do not output anything by
      default.  If you need ./configure to create Makefile, append AC_OUTPUT
      to configure.ac.  In case you don't want ./defs to pre-populate your
      test directory (which is a rare occurrence), set the 'am_create_testdir'
      shell variable to "empty" before sourcing ./defs.
    
      By default, the testcases are run with the errexit shell flag on,
      to make it easier to catch failures you might not have thought of.
      If  this is undesirable in some testcase, you can use "set +e" to
      disable the errexit flag (but please do so only if you have a very
      good reason).
    
      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 even if the errexit shell flag is on, in case
      the test contains 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.
    
      Use $sleep when you have to make sure that some file is newer
      than another.
    
      Use cat or grep or similar commands to display (part of) files that
      may be interesting for debugging, so that when a user send a verbose
      output we don't have to ask him for more details.  Display stderr
      output on the stderr file descriptor.  If some redirected command is
      likely to fail, display its output even in the failure case, before
      exiting.
    
      Use 'Exit' rather than 'exit' to abort for leave early from a test
      case.
    
      Use '$PATH_SEPARATOR', not hard-coded ':', as the separator of
      PATH's entries.
    
      It's more important to make sure that a feature works, than make
      sure that Automake's output looks correct.  It might look correct
      and still fail to work.  In other words, prefer running 'make' over
      grepping Makefile.in (or do both).
    
      If you run $ACLOCAL, $AUTOMAKE or $AUTOCONF several times in the
      same test and change configure.ac by the meantime, do
        rm -rf autom4te*.cache
      before the following runs.  On fast machines the new configure.ac
      could otherwise have the same timestamp as the old autom4te.cache.
    
      Use filenames with two consecutive spaces when testing that some
      code preserves filenames with spaces.  This will catch errors like
      `echo $filename | ...`.
    
      Make sure your test script can be used to faithfully check an
      installed version of automake (as with "make installcheck").  For
      example, if you need to copy or grep an automake-provided script,
      do not assume that they can be found in the '$top_srcdir/lib'
      directory, but use '$am_scriptdir' instead.  The complete list of
      such "$am_...dir" variables can be found in tests/defs-static.in.
    
      Before commit: make sure the test is executable, add the tests to
      TESTS in Makefile.am, add it to XFAIL_TESTS in addition if needed,
      write a ChangeLog entry, send the diff to <automake-patches@gnu.org>.
    
    
    Do not
    ------
    
      Do not test an Automake error with "$AUTOMAKE && Exit 1", or in three
      years we'll discover that this test failed for some other bogus reason.
      This happened many times.  Better use something like
         AUTOMAKE_fails
         grep 'expected diagnostic' stderr
      (Note this doesn't prevent the test from failing for another reason,
      but at least it makes sure the original error is still here).
    
      Do not override Makefile variables using make arguments, as in e.g.:
        $MAKE prefix=/opt install
      This is not portable for recursive targets (targets that call a
      sub-make may not pass "prefix=/opt" along).  Use the following
      instead:
        prefix=/opt $MAKE -e install