Re: dejagnu-1.6.3 make check failures

[Martin Cermak]

On  Tue  2021-09-21  21:30 , Jacob Bachmeyer wrote:
> Martin Cermak wrote:
> > Hi folks,
> > 
> > running make check for dejagnu-1.6.3 on Fedora 34.  I'm seeing
> > test failures per attached runtest sum and log files.  I'm
> > wondering whether these issues are known.  Looking at the open
> > bug list, I don't seem to see a matching one.
> > 
> > Thoughts?
> 
> I was wondering how long it would take for Fedora to pick up the 1.6.3
> release...
> 
> Back to the point, this is actually a bug in Expect 5.45.4 (and possibly
> other versions) that is tracked as bug#49078 in the GNU debbugs instance
> after the LinuxFromScratch people initially reported it:  Expect is
> incorrectly treating a line exactly 64 bytes long as EOF.
> 
> I have been investigating the issue but have not yet tracked down the exact
> cause or exactly where to go to push a fix upstream.  Does Fedora have
> someone sufficiently familiar with the Expect codebase and Tcl community to
> get this fixed?
> 
> My notes so far:
> 
>    An input line exactly 64 bytes long (64 bytes followed by newline) causes
> exp_get_next_event in exp_event.c to return -9 (EXP_DATA_NEW) which
> exp_interpreter in exp_main_sub.c incorrectly treats as EOF.  This causes
> Expect to exit, but somehow leaves the newline in the terminal buffer.  If
> Expect is run under GDB, the stray newline will be read and processed by
> GDB, typically causing various mayhem; if GDB is attached from another
> terminal, the stray newline will be read and processed by the shell after
> Expect exits.
>    The issue does not occur if Expect's input is a pipe, only when the child
> Expect is taking input from a pty.  The input does not need to arrive in a
> single burst and is unaffected by the basic *nix line editing; the issue
> occurs when a line 64 bytes long is sent to the child Expect.  This can also
> be observed using ssh and/or xterm, as long as the Expect process is using a
> pty.

Thank-you for the analysis, Jacob.  Not sure about a community, but
I've tried to spread the word.

Martin