Re: C++ libtool build error?

[Jim Meyering]

Bruno Haible wrote:
> Eric Blake wrote:
...
>> Alternatively, some solution that detected that C++ code isn't relevant
>> for the particular project, and didn't try to build those files.
>
> Actually, there are quite a number of tests that not every project may
> want to carry in its testsuite, but that should be packageable via
> --create-testdir:
>   - The C++ tests of the modules 'string', 'stdlib', etc.
>   - The tests that ask for the superuser password ('idpriv-drop',
>     'idpriv-droptemp').
>   - The long-running tests of the 'havelib' module (currently still in
>     gettext).
>
> The solution I would propose is to put them into a module '*-extratests'.
> It is like '*-tests', except that it is not included by default in
> --with-tests.

Hi Bruno,

I like the idea of being able to exclude tests
based on categories like those.

Rather than lumping them all into one "-extratests" category
that is tied to the module file name, have you considered
adding new module attributes?

Then, we could give any module one or more attributes,
and eventually exclude based on those attributes.
For example, if a package maintainer wants to avoid C++ tests,
they could do that without unnecessarily excluding long-running
ones as well.  And when this year's long-running test no longer
deserves its title in 2013, we won't have to change its name
to put it back in the set of tests everyone runs by default.