Re: gnulib-tool and --with-tests

[Bruno Haible]

Hi Simon,

> > $ ./gnulib-tool --test --with-tests parse-duration
> 
> Using '--test --with-tests' or '--create-testdir --with-tests' is quite
> common.  Is there any reason why --with-tests isn't the default?

It's for consistency with --import. Many packages like to have --import
without tests, and having --with-tests be enabled for --test but not for
--import would/may seem odd.

Maybe it's also historical: when the core of gnulib-tool was written
(in August 2004), gnulib did not contain any unit tests, but the option
--create-testdir exists already since 2002. Support for unit test modules
was only added on 2005-08-25.

> It seems rare to want to test a module without also wanting to include its
> self-tests.  Naively, it also seems surprising that '--test' and
> '-create-testdir' does not bring in self-*tests*.

I agree.

> What do you think of making --with-tests a no-op, and add a
> --without-tests to disable it?  This would save us all some typing...

You mean to make this change only in combination with --test,
--create-testdir, and --create-megatestdir? Not with --import.

I'm undecided. What do the others think?

> I haven't looked into the gnulib-tool changes at all so I don't know how
> difficult it would be to implement.

It'd be pretty trivial to implement.

Bruno