parallel testsuite execution (was: multiple cpu's)

[Ralf Wildenhues]

Hello Benoit,

* Benoit SIGOURE wrote on Mon, Aug 20, 2007 at 05:59:26PM CEST:
>
> http://www.tsunanet.net/~tsuna/check.mk

Can you rid it of nonportable constructs, and more importantly, can it
be included in Automake (copyright transfered to the FSF etc.)?

Hmm, let's see.  Most suffix rules should be trival to convert, unless I
missed something, except for the

| %.log: %$(EXEEXT)

rule.  I guess as a first approximation it would be ok to do without.
The awk script may require a bit of work for Solaris; I'd just drop the
colors; $(basename ..) is not portable; and also it would need adjustment
for Sun make's gigantic VPATH rewriting feature; 'TEST_LOGS ?=' would
need to be replaced by an override done at 'automake' time.  The whole
thing should probably be governed by an Automake option parallel-tests,
defaulting to off, for backward compatibility.  Then some documentation,
and about three tests to ensure it works as intended.

IOW, if nobody else I could probably even volunteer to do the rewrite
once the legal situation is clear.

Thanks,
Ralf