Re: Parallel tests execution [0/4]

[Ralf Wildenhues]

* Ralf Wildenhues wrote on Wed, Oct 15, 2008 at 11:35:07PM CEST:
> * Jim Meyering wrote on Wed, Oct 15, 2008 at 09:13:54PM CEST:
> > Ralf Wildenhues <address@hidden> wrote:
> > > 12) allow for additional output on stdout/stderr?
> > >     example: test was skipped because of $reason.
> > 
> > This would be nice.

> Hmm.  Maybe let another fd dup stderr?

Would be trivial, by adding '3>&2' first thing to am__check_post.
Several things that I am wary about:
- the file descriptor choice is a bit arbitrary, and might cause work
  for users,
- parallel runs will still intermingle output.

(Of course, for any non-ancient shell, it could be had by putting '3>&2'
in TESTS_ENVIRONMENT.)

> > It'd would be useful also to mark as "surprising" or
> > "highly undesirable" the results of certain tests.
> > Better than a simple "yes" or "no".

I don't really know what to do about this.  Why not let them FAIL?
More generally, if there are to be more result values, then we should
define a set of generally usable semantics for them.

But as a first approximation, I guess you could output some details on
the extra fd, and let "surprising" results PASS or SKIP, and "highly
undesirable" ones FAIL.  WDYT?

Cheers,
Ralf