GNUism in groff tests, was: pic anomalies

[Ingo Schwarze]

Hi,

Colin Watson wrote on Mon, Dec 30, 2019 at 01:39:08PM +0000:
> On Mon, Dec 30, 2019 at 01:39:38PM +0100, Ingo Schwarze wrote:

>> For example, right now, after "git pull" and building from source,
>> nine out of the fourteen tests fail for me on OpenBSD-current,

  schwarze@isnote $ make check
  [...]
  PASS: contrib/gdiffmk/tests/gdiffmk_tests.sh
  PASS: contrib/hdtbl/examples/test-hdtbl.sh
  PASS: contrib/mom/examples/tests-mom.sh
  PASS: src/roff/groff/tests/regression-56555.sh
  FAIL: src/roff/groff/tests/on-latin1-device-oq-is-0x27.sh
  FAIL: src/roff/groff/tests/string_case_xform_requests.sh
  XFAIL: src/roff/groff/tests/string_case_xform_unicode_escape.sh
  FAIL: src/roff/groff/tests/string_case_xform_errors.sh
  FAIL: tmac/tests/an-old_CS_register_off.sh
  FAIL: tmac/tests/an-old_CS_register_on.sh
  FAIL: tmac/tests/an-old_CS_register_unspecified.sh
  FAIL: tmac/tests/an-old_CT_register_off.sh
  FAIL: tmac/tests/an-old_CT_register_on.sh
  FAIL: tmac/tests/an-old_CT_register_unspecified.sh

I had a closer look and it turns out all nine failing tests start
with the line

  #!/usr/bin/env bash

I don't have bash(1) installed on my machines and i don't want it
installed there.  One of the reasons is that some autoconfiguration
systems and some application softwares look for bash and run it if
it is installed.

In general, i only install GNU versions of POSIX tools with a "g"
prefix (e.g. /usr/local/bin/gmake, /usr/local/bin/gtar) to make
it less likely that something picks them up, but even so, having
them installed is a risk, so i avoid even that as much as i can.

I just temporarily installed bash(1) for testing purposes to make sure
that's currently the only problem, and it is: with bash(1) installed,
all 14 tests currently succeed.

But i deleted /usr/local/bin/bash again, right away.

> FWIW, I run these tests as part of the Debian package build and enforce
> that they pass.  This is obviously only of limited use since it's only
> after releases, but it's better than nothing.  (I would hope that
> maintainers also run "make check" prior to release, perhaps via "make
> distcheck", although I don't actually know.)

As long as these tests use bash(1), i'm very reluctant to do that,
even though in general, running a test suite certainly makes sense
before you commit a package update.  Given the so far very small
test coverage, the tests don't help much for package testing yet.
Then again, that is likely to improve in the future, so having them
portable would be nice...

Yours,
  Ingo