Re: [Qemu-devel] [PATCH 2/2] test: replace gtester with a TAP driver

[Paolo Bonzini <pbonzini@redhat.com>]

On 29/11/18 22:06, Eric Blake wrote:
> On 11/29/18 11:45 AM, Paolo Bonzini wrote:
>> gtester is deprecated by upstream glib and it does not support tests
>> that call g_test_skip in some glib stable releases.
>>
>> glib suggests instead using Automake's TAP support.  We do not support
>> Automake, but we can copy the code that beautifies the TAP output and
>> use it.  I chose to use the Perl copy rather than the shell/awk one,
>> in order to reuse Perl's TAP parsing package, but I'm open to suggestions
>> about which language to use.
> 
> Maybe a reference to a URL documenting the glib deprecation would be in
> order? I found https://blog.gtk.org/2018/07/11/news-from-glib-2-58/

Good idea.

>> Signed-off-by: Paolo Bonzini <pbonzini@redhat.com>
>> ---
> 
>> +++ b/scripts/tap-driver.pl
>> @@ -0,0 +1,386 @@
>> +#! /usr/bin/env perl
>> +# Copyright (C) 2011-2013 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
> 
> This is not the latest version of automake.git/contrib/tap-driver.pl -
> which Automake version is it from?  Automake moved its perl driver out
> to pasture in 2013, stating that the awk+shell version is preferred in
> new automake projects.  I don't have a strong preference for which one
> you pick, but do worry that if automake adds future enhancements to the
> awk+shell, then the perl version won't keep up and we'll be stuck
> redoing things again in a few years.  On the other hand, TAP doesn't
> seem to be gaining new features at a very fast rate.

It does get some new features from time to time, and that's why I
preferred an external parser to a home-grown one---especially if we
would need to duplicate the awk parser in tap-merge.pl.

The version I used is just the one in the machine where I developed it
(RHEL 7), but there have been no relevant changes after that commit, so
it's not important.

>> +# You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
>> +# along with this program.  If not, see <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/>.
> 
> Among other things, the most recent version of tap-driver.pl switched
> all references to https://.

I can change this too.

>> +# As a special exception to the GNU General Public License, if you
>> +# distribute this file as part of a program that contains a
>> +# configuration script generated by Autoconf, you may include it under
>> +# the same distribution terms that you use for the rest of that program.
> 
> We do not use Autoconf, so this exception does not apply to our use of
> this file.  But since our project is GPL, I don't see including this
> file as a problem, nor do I find any problem with leaving the exception
> in place.

Yes, I find removing exceptions to be a bit unkind.

Paolo