Re: [4.0 Patch] Backport testsuite "target fpic" support

[Mark Mitchell <mark at codesourcery dot com>]

Kaveh R. Ghazi wrote:

> Since you asked...  ideally as a goal, I'd like to be able to diff the
> 4.0/testsuite and mainline/testsuite and get no diffs, only added or
> removed files. 

I think that's an excellent goal.  I don't know that it's 100%
achievable, as we may have (for example) removed testsuite
infrastructure stuff on the mainline required to deal with crufty bits
that we also remove from the compiler.  However, I'm in favor of the
spirit of your suggestion.

> Backporting candidates would include stuff in the testsuite/lib
> directory and the testcases themselves.

I don't think that backporting testcases that fail on the branch is a
good idea.  In fact, I don't even think that wholesale backporting of
testcases that (we believe to) pass is a great idea, unless they were
clearly omitted from a patch that was backported.  If we backport a
testcase that we think passes, but doesn't actually pass everywhere
under all circumstances then someone will see new failures, and that
will be confusing.

> So testsuite patches to mainline/4.1 should be
> applied to 4.0 as well.

I think that's raising the bar too far.  I think we should let those
creating patches use their discretion in this respect.

Thanks,

-- 
Mark Mitchell
CodeSourcery, LLC
mark@codesourcery.com
(916) 791-8304