Re: Launch bash script for functional testing with "make check" and "make distcheck"

[Timothée Flutre]

I updated M4, Autoconf and Automake to their latest version. In
Makefile.am, I'm added only this:

AM_TESTS_ENVIRONMENT = \
        myprog_abspath='$(abs_srcdir)'/../src/myprog; \
        export myprog_abspath;

And now "make check" works! However, "make distcheck" doesn't. This is due
to the fact that, for "make distcheck", the variable $(abs_srcdir) points
to ~/mypkg/mypkg-1.0/_build/../test/ while I'd like it to point to
~/mypkg/mypkg-1.0/_build/test/.

I also tried with this:

AM_TESTS_ENVIRONMENT = \
        myprog_abspath='$(abs_top_srcdir)'/src/myprog; \
        export myprog_abspath;

"make check" still works but "make distchek" doesn't because
$(abs_top_srcdir) now points to ~/mypkg/mypkg-1.0/_build/../ while I want
it to point to ~/mypkg/mypkg-1.0/_build/.

To summarize, when using "make distcheck", "myprog" is not in
~/mypkg/mypkg-1.0/src/ but in ~/mypkg/mypkg-1.0/_build/src/. I don't
understand the rationale underlying this behavior. Why does "distcheck"
need to create _build? Any idea on how to solve my problem?

BTW I had a look at the code of Coreutils here,
http://git.savannah.gnu.org/cgit/coreutils.git/tree/, but can't see any
Makefile.am.

Thanks already for all your advice,
Tim

On Thu, Jan 10, 2013 at 3:00 AM, Stefano Lattarini <
address@hidden> wrote:

> On 01/09/2013 04:09 PM, Timothée Flutre wrote:
> > Thanks, I've added TESTS_ENVIRONMENT (tried with or without "AC_")
> >
> (it's "AM_" BTW)
>
> > in my test/Makefile.am and updated the rest like this:
> >
> > launch_functional_tests.bash: $(srcdir)/launch_functional_tests.in
> >         sed -e 's,PATHTOMYPROG,$(myprog_abspath),g'
> > $(srcdir)/launch_functional_tests.in > launch_functional_tests.bash
> >         chmod +x launch_functional_tests.bash
> >
> Sorry if I wasn't clear enough: with my suggestion, you don't need to
> preprocess 'launch_functional_tests.bash' any longer; you can just have
> it rely on the '$myprog_abspath' environment variable instead.
>
> > However, the variable $(myprog_abspath) is empty! This can be seen on
> > the stdout when running "make":
> > ...
> > make[1]: Entering directory `~/mypkg/test'
> > sed -e 's,PATHTOMYPROG,,g' ./launch_functional_tests.in >
> > launch_functional_tests.bash
> > chmod +x launch_functional_tests.bash
> > make[1]: Leaving directory `~/mypkg/test'
> > ...
> >
> > I'm using Automake v1.9.6.
> >
> Wow, that is ancient.  My suggestions only applied to Automake 1.11
> onward.  Automake versions older tan those are no longer worth
> supporting nor considering, IMHO.
>
>  Can the problem come from this? (For
> > completeness, the machine I'm using has Autoconf v2.59.)
> >
> I suggest you update your installation ASAP (at least to Automake 1.12.6
> and Autoconf 2.65).
>
> > The manual
> >
> Be careful: the online manual only refers to the latest released
> Automake version (as of today, 1.13.1).  If you have a different
> version, you should only refer to the locally-installed documentation.
>
> > also speaks of a script "tests-env.sh". Is there a GNU
> > package using something like this, so that I could have a look at it?
> >
> Yes, GNU coreutils, IIRC.  But consider that the coreutils build system
> requires Automake 1.11 or later, so some (or many) of its idioms cannot
> work with older Automake.
>
> HTH,
>   Stefano
>