Re: Automake testsuite misuses DejaGnu

[Jacob Bachmeyer]

Daniel Herring wrote:
> It seems fragile for DejaGnu to probe for a testsuite directory and 
> change its behavior as you describe.  For example, I could have a 
> project without the testsuite dir, invoke the tester, and have it find 
> and run some unrelated files in the parent directory.  Unexpected 
> behavior (chaos) may ensue.

This already happens and this is the behavior that is deprecated and 
even more fragile.  Without a testsuite/ directory, DejaGnu will end up 
searching the tree for *.exp files and running them all.  Eventually, if 
$srcdir neither is nor contains "testsuite", DejaGnu will throw an error 
and abort.  The testsuite/ directory is a long-documented requirement.

> Is there an explicit command-line argument that could be added to the 
> Automake invocation?

Not easily; the probing is done specifically to allow for two different 
ways of using DejaGnu:  using recursive Makefiles that invoke DejaGnu 
with the testsuite/ directory current, and using non-recursive 
Makefiles, which with Automake will invoke DejaGnu with the top-level 
directory, presumably containing the "testsuite" directory.  Both of 
these cases must be supported:  the toolchain packages use the former 
and Automake's basic DejaGnu support will use the latter if a 
non-recursive layout is desired.

Both of these use the same command line argument --srcdir and site.exp 
variable srcdir; the difference is that srcdir has acquired two 
different meanings.


-- Jacob