Re: more verbose tests

[Stefano Lattarini]

Hi Karl.

On 11/11/2012 01:52 AM, Karl Berry wrote:
> Stefano,
> 
> Regarding more verbose tests, I see that simply setting -x shows the
> expansions in the .log file without messing up the simple build output.
> That seems like it would be 90% of the help for 10% of the work of
> adding more verbosity.
> 
> Are you aware of problems (either with automake or more likely with
> shell portability) with using #!/bin/sh -x for sh tests?
>
I'm aware of no such problem; in fact, the Automake testsuite runs all
its shell tests with "set -x" active.

With some shells, there might be few issues with stderr redirections
getting a copy of the redirected command:

  <http://www.gnu.org/software/autoconf/manual/autoconf.html#File-Descriptors>

but that happens for few shells only, and even when it does, is almost
never a problem (when it is, it has simple workarounds -- just disable
the shell traces temporarily).  And IMHO, such annoyances are definitely
a price worth paying for the help in diagnosis and debuggability offered
by verbose logs.

HTH,
  Stefano