[bug #66155] test suite should confirm functionality of pdftotext

[Dave]

URL:
  <https://savannah.gnu.org/bugs/?66155>

                 Summary: test suite should confirm functionality of pdftotext
                   Group: GNU roff
               Submitter: barx
               Submitted: Sat 31 Aug 2024 03:31:11 PM CDT
                Category: General
                Severity: 3 - Normal
              Item Group: Test
                  Status: None
                 Privacy: Public
             Assigned to: None
             Open/Closed: Open
         Discussion Lock: Any
         Planned Release: None


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Follow-up Comments:


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Date: Sat 31 Aug 2024 03:31:11 PM CDT By: Dave <barx>
Revealed in discovery for bug #66143: two packages, xpdf and poppler, provide
a command named "pdftotext".  They have the same basic functionality but use
some incompatible syntax.

The test suite uses this command with the poppler syntax.  But, as the xpdf
version was not known to the development team, no verification is done to make
sure the system's installed pdftotext is the expected one.

Branden posits one way to solve this: "having the test scripts check the
program behavior and SKIPping the test if the program doesn't behave the way
we expect."  The tests are largely for the benefit of the development team, so
skipping a few tests on some platforms wouldn't be a significant loss.

Alternately, an enterprising contributor with access to the xpdf pdftotext
could submit alternate versions of these tests, which could do one of two
things:
* Call pdftotext differently depending on which version is installed
* Use only syntax common to both versions (if there's enough overlap for that
to work)







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