Re: initialization files for test suite

[Rik]

On 02/07/2019 11:54 AM, address@hidden wrote:
> Subject: > Re: RC2 / 5.0.91 > From: > Mike Miller <address@hidden> > Date: > 02/07/2019 11:45 AM > To: > address@hidden > List-Post: > <mailto:address@hidden> > Precedence: > list > MIME-Version: > 1.0 > References: > <address@hidden> <address@hidden> <address@hidden> <address@hidden> <address@hidden> > In-Reply-To: > <address@hidden> > Message-ID: > <address@hidden> > Content-Type: > multipart/signed; micalg=pgp-sha256; protocol="application/pgp-signature"; boundary="oyUTqETQ0mS9luUI" > Message: > 4 > > On Thu, Feb 07, 2019 at 14:15:04 -0500, Andrew Janke wrote: >> I wonder if, for the test suite, the system and/or site octavercs should be >> treated differently from the user octaverc, because this might be used to >> make configuration changes for Octave to work correctly in the environment >> in which it's installed? > In that case, you can choose to run the test suite with octave > --no-init-file. This loads the system startup files but avoids loading > user startup files. > > I feel like this subthread is trying to define a strict environment that > the test suite should always be run in. IMHO that is not the right > direction at all. The test suite should be run in the user's normal > working environment. > I think this is a good aspirational goal, but not something that we can implement immediately.  What I did do, immediately, was to change the invocation of octave when running 'make check' to use '--no-init-file' rather than '--norc'.  See https://hg.savannah.gnu.org/hgweb/octave/rev/8e97a2e5ab66.  This is a step towards the eventual goal, and will do the right thing when the system (such as Mac) require customization even to run.

I haven't checked whether run-octave does the correct thing in a newly unpacked and compiled source tree and takes the system-wide octaverc from the build directory, versus the install directory.  If it is the latter then a previous installation of Octave would be required to run 'make check' which is not ideal.

@Andrew: Could you file an issue report about making the entire test suite robust against changes in the user's environment?  Some simple scenarios that would flush out various problems:

1) Change save_default_options to something obtuse, like '-ascii', and run test suite.
2) Change default graphics_toolkit to "fltk", and run test suite
3) Change default graphics_toolkit to "gnuplot", and run test suite
4) Make all working directories read-only (perhaps 'chmod -R 555 *'), and run test suite

--Rik