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Re: non-recursive make and tests
On Mon, 30 Aug 2004, Bob Friesenhahn wrote:
It would be quite helpful if Automake offered a mode in which it
automatically changed the working directory to the directory where the test
program/script resides and set $srcdir to the relative position in the source
tree to support VPATH builds. This would emulate the operation of recursive
builds. Either a global Automake option could be used to enable this
(subdir-tests), or a "RTESTS" (relative tests) mode would be provided.
It seems that this topic has not caught anyone's interest since there
have been no follow-up posts today. Surely someone else has converted
their recursive project to a non-recursive project and noticed that it
is very difficult to get test suites working again?
The current check-TESTS definition works great for recursive builds,
but is miserable for non-recursive builds.
The $(srcdir) value passed is often essentially useless since it may
just be '.'. It is difficult for the Makefile to produce better
values except for perhaps offsets from @abs_top_srcdir@ and
@abs_top_builddir@ substitutions. It may also be possible to play
games by passing back-ticked shell script fragments rather than normal
values in the TESTS_ENVIRONMENT specification.
Regardless, the tests themselves should not have to know their
position in the source or build tree.
Bob
======================================
Bob Friesenhahn
bfriesen@simple.dallas.tx.us
http://www.simplesystems.org/users/bfriesen