Re: Testsuite reorganization, documentation, cleanup?

[Stan Shebs <shebs at apple dot com>]

Hans-Peter Nilsson wrote:

> On Tue, 8 Oct 2002, Nathanael Nerode wrote:
>
> > On Mon, Oct 07, 2002 at 02:58:17PM -0700, Stan Shebs wrote:
> >
> > > I don't like this level of subdivision very much.  It's needed for
> > > torture tests because they don't have any info internal to the file,
> > > but in general I think test instructions instructions for a file should
> > > be in the file, not implicit in some detail of its pathname.
> Why not?  What's wrong with having a directory where different
> optimization options are iterated over, with the exact option
> not explicitly stated in the file?  It's quite convenient IMHO.
> If there's a future -O0.5 option, it can be added to the
> iterations.
That's why I said "in general".  The current torture test structure
is very efficient for the purpose it serves, and I don't see much
need to change it, although it would be very useful to document it more.

A amusing pragmatic reason: someday the compiler will ICE with -Os on an
empty file. :-)

This touches on a meta-reason for not trying to force every test into a
completely uniform framework; as with monoculture farming, you're
exposed to bugs that only happen in programs not structured in the same
way.  That's why I discouraged uniform GNU-style formatting for the GDB
testsuite programs; it's easy to imagine GDB bugs where source lines
always list correctly for GNU formatting, and incorrectly for other
styles.  (A way to encourage the One True Style I suppose. :-) )

Stan