Re: Testing a new compiler with Automake "simple tests"

[Stefano Lattarini]

At Tuesday 17 August 2010, Roberto Bagnara wrote:
> I would like to test a new special-purpose compiler
> (which is part of a bigger project) using the Automake
> "simple tests" feature.
>
> I have two problems:
> 
> 1) I have not found a way to force recompilation
>     of all test programs whenever the compiler executable
>     has changed.  Note that we are talking about
>     thousands of test programs so, if at all possible,
>     I would like to avoid listing that dependency
>     for each one of those.
Maybe I don't understand the problem, but... what's wrong
with:
  $(TESTS): your-special-purpose-compiler
or something similar?

> 2) Automatic dependency tracking cannot work in
>     that directory of the project (indeed, the only
>     dependency is on the compiler... all the test
>     programs are self-contained).  How can I disably
>     automatic dependency tracking *only* on that
>     directory?
What about adding `no-dependencies' to AUTOMAKE_OPTIONS
in that directory's Makefile.am?  The documentation at
<http://www.gnu.org/software/automake/manual/automake.html#Options>
reads:
  "no-dependencies: This is similar to using --ignore-deps on the
   command line, but is useful for those situations where you don't
   have the necessary bits to make automatic dependency tracking work
   (see Dependencies).  In this case the effect is to effectively
   disable automatic dependency tracking."

HTH,
  Stefano