Re: [PATCH] test: fix for TEST_OUTPUT_DIRECTORY

[Felipe Contreras <felipe.contreras@gmail.com>]

Jeff King wrote:
> On Wed, Jun 09, 2021 at 12:05:20PM -0500, Felipe Contreras wrote:
> 
> > The test_atexit unit test relies on the specific location of the
> > generated files.
> > 
> > When TEST_OUTPUT_DIRECTORY is unset, _run_sub_test_lib_test_common sets
> > it to pwd, which is two levels under the pwd of the parent unit test,
> > and the parent can find the generated files just fine.
> > 
> > But when TEST_OUTPUT_DIRECTORY is set, it's stored in GIT-BUILD-OPTIONS,
> > and even though _run_sub_test_lib_test_common correctly overrides it,
> > when the child script is run, it sources GIT-BUILD-OPTIONS, and
> > TEST_OUTPUT_DIRECTORY is overridden.
> > 
> > Effectively both the parent and child scripts output to the same
> > directory.
> > 
> >   make TEST_OUTPUT_DIRECTORY=/tmp/foobar GIT-BUILD-OPTIONS &&
> >   make -C t t0000-basic.sh
> 
> I agree things are broken when TEST_OUTPUT_DIRECTORY is set. We pollute
> /tmp/foobar in that case with trash directories, as well as its
> test-results/ directory with subtest results (mostly "counts" files).
> 
> > On the other hand we could follow the alternate path suggested in
> > 6883047071 (t0000: set TEST_OUTPUT_DIRECTORY for sub-tests, 2013-12-28):
> > pass the --root parameter to the child scripts.
> > 
> > The alternate solution works, so let's do that instead.
> 
> Unfortunately, this isn't a complete solution.

Software will never be perfect.

We don't need to wait for a perfect solution, all we need is something
better than the current siuation.

> Using --root fixes the
> trash directories, but we still pollute test-results. No tests in t0000
> rely on that, but it's still the wrong thing to be doing.
> 
> That's true before your patch, as well, though it does make things
> slightly worse when TEST_OUTPUT_DIRECTORY isn't set (before in that case
> everything worked perfectly, and now it pollutes test-results/, too).

True.

> I think solving the whole issue would require a mechanism for passing
> TEST_OUTPUT_DIRECTORY in a way that can't be overridden (whether in an
> environment variable or the command-line).

Why do we even have TEST_OUTPUT_DIRECTORY in GIT-BUILD-OPTIONS? Looking
for a reason there's 2d14e13c56 (test output: respect
$TEST_OUTPUT_DIRECTORY, 2013-04-29), there it says it's for
valgrind/analyze.sh.

I don't know who uses that script, or how. There's no documentaion,
nothing on the mailing list, and nothing found on Google.

I think whomever usses that script *and* TEST_OUTPUT_DIRECTORY, can
simply do `TEST_OUTPUT_DIRECTORY=foo valgrind/analyze.sh`.

So maybe:

diff --git a/Makefile b/Makefile
index c3565fc0f8..2e25489569 100644
--- a/Makefile
+++ b/Makefile
@@ -2790,9 +2790,6 @@ GIT-BUILD-OPTIONS: FORCE
        @echo PAGER_ENV=\''$(subst ','\'',$(subst ','\'',$(PAGER_ENV)))'\' >>$@+
        @echo DC_SHA1=\''$(subst ','\'',$(subst ','\'',$(DC_SHA1)))'\' >>$@+
        @echo X=\'$(X)\' >>$@+
-ifdef TEST_OUTPUT_DIRECTORY
-       @echo TEST_OUTPUT_DIRECTORY=\''$(subst ','\'',$(subst ','\'',$(TEST_OUTPUT_DIRECTORY)))'\' >>$@+
-endif
 ifdef GIT_TEST_OPTS
        @echo GIT_TEST_OPTS=\''$(subst ','\'',$(subst ','\'',$(GIT_TEST_OPTS)))'\' >>$@+
 endif
diff --git a/t/valgrind/analyze.sh b/t/valgrind/analyze.sh
index 2ffc80f721..378d0a8daa 100755
--- a/t/valgrind/analyze.sh
+++ b/t/valgrind/analyze.sh
@@ -1,8 +1,5 @@
 #!/bin/sh
 
-# Get TEST_OUTPUT_DIRECTORY from GIT-BUILD-OPTIONS if it's there...
-. "$(dirname "$0")/../../GIT-BUILD-OPTIONS"
-# ... otherwise set it to the default value.
 : ${TEST_OUTPUT_DIRECTORY=$(dirname "$0")/..}
 
 output=

-- 
Felipe Contreras