Re: [FYI] {master} tests: fix spurious failure of extradep.test on FreeBSD

[Stefano Lattarini]

[dropping automake-patches]

Hi Eric.

On Monday 09 May 2011, Eric Blake wrote:
> [redirecting to bug-autoconf]
> 
> On 05/07/2011 07:14 AM, Stefano Lattarini wrote:
> > Subject: [PATCH] tests: fix spurious failure of extradep.test on FreeBSD
> > 
> > * tests/extradep.test: When using `ls -t' to determine whether a
> > file has been updated, make sure to use as reference a file whose
> > timestamp is expected to be *strictly* older that that of the file
> > being checked.  This is required because at least FreeBSD `ls' do
> > not sort files with the same timestamp in alphabetical order when
> > using the `-t' option.
> 
> Ouch.  That's a POSIX violation.  We should document it as a portability
> pitfall in the autoconf manual.
> 
Wait, I cannot reproduce it.  And by reading the source of FreeBSD ls
(/usr/src/bin/ls/ls.c and usr/src/bin/ls/cmp.c) it seems that `ls -t'
should indeed sort same-timestamp files alphabetically.  Hmm.  I'll try
to look better into this tomorrow if nobody beats me.

Regards,
  Stefano