Re: AT_CHECK within for loop

[Joel E. Denny]

On Fri, 28 Jan 2011, Eric Blake wrote:

> Unfortunately correct - if you want multiple tests (that is, where you
> can run a subset of the testsuite using just testsuite arguments, rather
> than hacking the 'bad' script filter in that initial AS_IF of the
> example above), then you must surround AT_SETUP inside an m4 loop to
> repeat its expansion once per test.

Using the normal testsuite script interface to select from the good files 
is certainly part of the motivation in my case.  Moreover, the test code 
we've written per file is sometimes large and slow.  Thus, it's nice to 
see progress as soon as each file finishes.  Seeing progress is not a 
problem in verbose mode, but then it's nice that all the output is 
separated by file.  Regardless of whether verbose mode is enabled, we want 
a single final result per file.

> It's a tradeoff of the level of test granularity you want; also, using
> an m4 loop to expand AT_SETUP multiple times creates a larger testsuite,
> so you don't gain from the compactness of a shell loop.

So, for ease of use, large test code per file is motivation to give each 
file its own AT_SETUP.  For tarball size, large test code per file is 
motivation to have one AT_SETUP for all files.  In my case, the first 
concern wins, and the bandwidth will just have to be sacrificed.

A way to get the best of both worlds might be to permit shell functions 
containing AT_CHECK to be defined outside of AT_SETUP.  I believe that is 
not possible with autotest now, and I have no idea if it's feasible to 
implement.

For the record, we do not have an immediate need to reduce the size of our 
tarballs in this way, but our test suites continue to grow.