Re: [PATCH 1/6] Maint-check: check consistency of list of test scripts.

[Ralf Wildenhues]

Hello Stefano, and a happy new year everyone,

* Stefano Lattarini wrote on Sat, Dec 26, 2009 at 01:57:41AM CET:
> This patch add a new maintainer-specific check:
>   `maintainer-check-list-of-tests'.
> 
> This check verifies that the tests listed in $(TESTS) correspond to the 
> test scripts on the filesystem, counting both the "committed" (e.g. 
> `aclibobj.test')  and "generated" (e.g. `check-p.test') test scripts.
> Note that maintainer-check fails after applying this patch, as some 
> test scripts are missing from $(TESTS).  This will be fixed by the next 
> patch.

I often have uncommitted test files in automake/tests/ lying around, for
issues that are not fixed yet.  I don't really want to move them away in
order for `make maintainer-check' to pass.  OTOH, I think it is fine to
require that tests entered into version control are listed in the
makefile as well (they can be marked XFAIL if they don't work yet).

If in a patch series, you first introduce code duplication and then
clean it up, IMVHO it is better to introduce the cleanup right away,
or even first, and then add the new code (this concerns 5/6 and 6/6
of this series).  In this particular case, the duplication is still
there after your cleanup; see lib/am/subdirs.am.  It is probably a
better idea to provide for a user API to extend the list of recursive
targets; especially, since the home-grown copy for the toplevel recheck
rule inherits a bug since fixed in the subdirs.am version.

Thanks,
Ralf