Re: Separating test inputs?

[Ricardo Wurmus]

Felix Lechner via "Development of GNU Guix and the GNU System distribution." 
<guix-devel@gnu.org> writes:

> In Debian, test prerequisites are annotated awkwardly with <!nocheck> in
> the build prerequisites. (I think Guix calls them native-inputs.) You
> can see some of Debian's funny notations here [1] and here. [2]

Native inputs are those that in the context of cross-building need to
run on the host, not the target.  This is not just for test inputs.

Note also that the presence of test inputs has an impact on the build
itself, such as the configure step, the number of build phases, and even
the output.  In short: without tests this would be a different
derivation.  That’s what we do with the “--without-tests”
transformation: we generate new derivations where tests are not run.

We probably could enhance “--without-tests” to also remove some inputs.

-- 
Ricardo