Re: Using autotest with Emacs’ compilation mode

[Nikolai Weibull]

Hi!

I don’t want to be a nag, but does anyone have any input on this?  Why
has the testsuite output been designed this way?

On Sat, Jan 30, 2016 at 1:23 PM, Nikolai Weibull <address@hidden> wrote:

> Since there hasn’t been any responses yet, let me fill in the blanks,
> as I see them.
>
> On Fri, Jan 29, 2016 at 9:18 PM, Nikolai Weibull <address@hidden> wrote:
>
>> A question to all you users of Autoconf and Emacs: How are you using
>> autotest with Emacs’ compilation mode?
>>
>> The output of an autotest testsuite isn’t really suited for Emacs’
>> compilation mode, as the paths to tests are, at least when using a
>> separate build directory, not correct.
>
> Here’s a, most likely incomplete, list of issues with the testsuite
> regarding paths:
>
> 1. The -C option doesn’t have a corresponding -w and --print-directory
> (and --no-print-directory) option to output the directory it’s
> changing to, which means that paths can’t be tracked by Emacs.
>
> 2. The path stored in $at_check_line_file is always relative to the
> location of testsuite.  It should be relative to $at_dir.
>
> 3. The path stored in $at_setup_line is always relative to the
> location of testsuite.  It should be relative to $at_dir.
>
> 4. The path stored in $at_group_log to the command being executed
> should be relative to the location of $at_group_log.  This is probably
> hard to fix using relative directories, as the path is also output to
> the terminal in verbose mode (via $at_tee_pipe) and in this case the
> path should be relative to $at_srcdir (as it is today).
>
> 5. It would be useful if there was a way to include the path to the
> log file in the output, perhaps enabled via an option, so that Emacs’
> compilation mode could pick it up for next-error.
>
>> Also, how do you check the logs of failed tests effectively when a test 
>> fails?
>
> Here’s a list of issues with the log files that open up in compilation mode:
>
> 1. The log sets up compilation mode (via “-*- compilation -*-”), but
> it doesn’t set default-directory, meaning that relative paths are
> relative to the log instead of to the directory where compilation took
> place.
>
> 2. The log doesn’t set compile-command, which could theoretically be
> set to “run” to re-run the test.  It might be necessary to set
> compile-directory as well.
>
> 3. Executing recompile (g) from one of these log files will replace
> the content of the log with the output of the compilation, as Emacs
> will reuse the buffer.  I’m not sure how you’d get Emacs to (re-)use
> the “*compilation*” buffer, as compilation-buffer-name-function can’t
> safely be set via a file-local variable, so this might have to be
> fixed in Emacs.