Re: Test file for texinfo.tex

[Gavin Smith]

On 17 August 2015 at 23:12, Karl Berry <address@hidden> wrote:
> FWIW, I think separate files testing specific things is better than one
> big test file.  (E.g., "tests/macro-backslash.texi" rather than
> "texinfo-tex-test.texi".)  The trip test approach does not work for
> anyone but Knuth.

Don't know what you mean by "the trip test approach".

> ANyway ... I have hundreds of test files (not organized, not documented,
> not anything -- essentially just the problems people have reported over
> the decades; so I've never committed them anywhere).
>
> The problem is that since there is no good way to create the reference
> file, there's no practical way to know when something has broken.
> Running without getting a TeX error is something, but not really that
> much.  Most problems, backslash interpretation in macros aside, are
> about what gets generated, rather than an actual TeX error.

The test file was intended for manual inspection. It should contain
notes about what is expected to appear there, for example, notes like
"The two following lines should be identical", for the benefit of the
person inspecting it.