Re: valgrind-tests.m4

[Ralf Wildenhues]

Hi Simon,

* Simon Josefsson wrote on Mon, May 17, 2010 at 12:15:51PM CEST:
> I'm running self-tests under valgrind in several projects, and it seems
> like a general useful thing, so how about putting the macro for this in
> gnulib?

Nice idea.  However, in general, tests might be executable programs, or
they might be shell or other scripts.  In the latter cases, putting
valgrind in TESTS_ENVIRONMENT would be at least a waste (you don't want
to check bash or perl).  With Automake 1.11's parallel-tests option, you
have the possibility to specify per-extension "compilers" for tests.

Example:
  # .sh and .pl files are processed to .log files.
  TEST_EXTENSIONS = .sh .pl
  SH_LOG_COMPILER = bash -vx
  PL_LOG_COMPILER = perl -w -m strict
  TESTS = foo.sh bar.pl baz.sh

Besides, TESTS_ENVIRONMENT really is meant as a variable for the
end-user rather than for the developer.

It would be nice to have an approach that supports these use cases (in
addition to Ben's remarks).

Cheers,
Ralf