Re: autotest speedups

[Paolo Bonzini]

> > Anybody figured out where autotest spends time *at runtime*?  I tried to 
> > track something there, but never really got anywhere.
>
> Easy: parsing.  Even with
>   cd autoconf/tests && ./testsuite 1

Cool, so my patches will indeed speed up run-time a little bit.  Or more 
accurately, initialization time, because parsing is done only once.

Indeed, to verify if the shell parsed the case statement 300+ times, I 
tried separating each test group into a shell function.  That moved the 
parsing from happening "after writing the heading" to "before writing 
the heading", but it did not speed up the testsuite at all (it actually 
lost 1-2%).

I attach the patch for the sake of your experimenting.

Paolo

diff --git a/lib/autotest/general.m4 b/lib/autotest/general.m4
index 31038a1..91aefa5 100644
--- a/lib/autotest/general.m4
+++ b/lib/autotest/general.m4
@@ -119,6 +119,7 @@ m4_define([_m4_divert(HELP_END)],           304)
 m4_define([_m4_divert(VERSION)],            350)
 m4_define([_m4_divert(VERSION_NOTICES)],    351)
 m4_define([_m4_divert(VERSION_END)],        352)
+m4_define([_m4_divert(TEST_FUNCTIONS)],     399)
 m4_define([_m4_divert(PREPARE_TESTS)],      400)
 m4_define([_m4_divert(TESTS)],              401)
 m4_define([_m4_divert(TESTS_END)],          402)
@@ -1198,8 +1199,10 @@ m4_define([AT_xfail], [at_xfail=no])
 m4_define([AT_description], m4_quote($1))
 m4_define([AT_ordinal], m4_incr(AT_ordinal))
 m4_append([AT_groups_all], [ ]m4_defn([AT_ordinal]))
-m4_divert_push([TESTS])dnl
-  AT_ordinal ) @%:@ AT_ordinal. m4_defn([AT_line]): m4_defn([AT_description])
+m4_divert_push([TEST_FUNCTIONS])dnl
+
address@hidden:@ AT_ordinal. m4_defn([AT_line]): m4_defn([AT_description])
+at_test[]AT_ordinal () {
     at_setup_line='m4_defn([AT_line])'
     at_desc="AS_ESCAPE(m4_defn([AT_description]))"
     $at_quiet AS_ECHO_N(["m4_format([%3d: ], AT_ordinal)$at_desc"]dnl
@@ -1247,7 +1250,7 @@ m4_define([AT_CLEANUP],
 [m4_append([AT_help_all],
 
m4_defn([AT_ordinal]);m4_defn([AT_line]);m4_defn([AT_description]);m4_ifdef([AT_keywords],
 [m4_defn([AT_keywords])]);
 )dnl
-m4_divert_pop([TEST_SCRIPT])dnl Back to TESTS
+m4_divert_pop([TEST_SCRIPT])dnl Back to TESTS_FUNCTIONS
     AT_xfail
     echo "#                             -*- compilation -*-" >> "$at_group_log"
     (
@@ -1258,8 +1261,10 @@ m4_undivert([TEST_SCRIPT])dnl Insert the code here
       $at_times_p && times >"$at_times_file"
     ) AS_MESSAGE_LOG_FD>&1 2>&1 | eval $at_tee_pipe
     at_status=`cat "$at_status_file"`
-    ;;
-
+}
+m4_divert_pop([TEST_FUNCTIONS])dnl Back to KILL
+m4_divert_push([TESTS])dnl
+  AT_ordinal ) at_test[]AT_ordinal ;;
 m4_divert_pop([TESTS])dnl Back to KILL.
 ])# AT_CLEANUP