Re: [Automake-NG] [PATCH 20/17] [ng] news: update w.r.t. recent changes in testsuite harnesses (TESTS based)

[Akim Demaille]

Le 29 mai 2012 à 19:47, Stefano Lattarini a écrit :

> Hi Akim.

Hi Stefano,

>> Actually I don't even know what benefit there is from using
>> this "standard"
>> 
> To name just a few of them:
> 
>  - one test script can have several results (very useful to increase the
>    granularity of tests, as Automake does with, e.g., 't/instspc.tap');
> 
>  - it allows to declare *conditional* expected failure (e.g., "this test
>    failed, but we are on AIX, so that is not a regression");
> 
>  - there are sophisticated, independent runners for TAP-based tests (the
>    'prove' utility being one of the most known and feature-rich);
> 
>  - there are feature-rich, mature perl modules that can generate TAP
>    output ('Test::Simple' and 'Test::More' at least, plus a plethora
>    of others);
> 
>  - TAP is used in the testsuite of most perl modules, of Perl itself,
>    and also by Git (in the last couple of years at least); so it is
>    here to stay (de-facto standard).

I expect that you will answer that a documentation is
not the right place for marketing, yet I would have
appreciated such a description in the Automake documentation,
to understand what was the impetus, and what it buys us.

Also, without any concrete uses that I am aware of in an
Automade project, there is little source of inspiration.
I have understood that Automake uses it partially, and have
to look at it, sure.

>> (even though I google'd, and browsed the Automake documentation (btw, there
>> is no index for TAP)).

I really mean that automake.texi should @cindex TAP.