Re: automake 1.11.3 check-TESTS and command line length

[Bob Friesenhahn]

On Wed, 22 Feb 2012, Stefano Lattarini wrote:

> Hi Bob, sorry for the delay.
>
> On 02/19/2012 07:55 PM, Bob Friesenhahn wrote:
> > I am again bit by automake not being able run the test suite on systems
> > with bounded command line length.  Up to automake 1.11.2 I was able to
> > apply a patch by Ralf Wildenhues.
> Which patch are you referring to exactly?

This one: 
http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/automake-patches/2010-09/msg00068.html

> > With 1.11.3 the implementation is totally different and the patch has no hope
> > of applying.
> How does this later patch of mine fares?
>
>  <http://debbugs.gnu.org/cgi/bugreport.cgi?bug=7868#31>

I will check when I have time.

> Caveat: it works for GNU make only, and it's *really ugly*.  So ugly that I 
> don't
> feel like applying it to automake proper.

A GNU make dependency would be a real problem.  A dependency on a 
properly-working standard make would not be such a problem.

> "Again" is not the correct word here -- automake, either patched or not,
> has *never* been able to run arbitrarily large test suites.  Still, recent
> changes might have unintentionally reduced the maximal "testsuite size"
> automake is able to handle, and we'd want to fix that.  How "big" is the
> testsuite you are referring to concretely?

I have not run into any problems when using Ralf's patch, but it 
apparently does not address all issues so Ralf backed it out.

My test suite is pretty slim at the moment.  About 610 tests (used to 
be about 1200) which expand to a list of tests of at least 17903 bytes 
when builddir == srcdir, or 36813 bytes with one of my typical build 
configurations with builddir != srcdir.

Bob
--
Bob Friesenhahn
address@hidden, http://www.simplesystems.org/users/bfriesen/
GraphicsMagick Maintainer,    http://www.GraphicsMagick.org/