Re: [PATCH] test-lib: introduce the '-V' short option for '--verbose-log'

From: SZEDER Gábor <szeder.dev@gmail.com>
Date: Oct 29, 2018, 13:53 UTC
Message-ID: <20181029135335.GS30222@szeder.dev>
In-Reply-To: <20181029142108.GD17668@sigill.intra.peff.net>

On Mon, Oct 29, 2018 at 10:21:08AM -0400, Jeff King wrote:

Show 16 quoted lines

> On Mon, Oct 29, 2018 at 01:13:59PM +0100, SZEDER Gábor wrote:
> 
> > '--verbose-log' is one of the most useful and thus most frequently
> > used test options, but due to its length it's a pain to type on the
> > command line.
> > 
> > Let's introduce the corresponding short option '-V' to save some
> > keystrokes.
> 
> Interesting. I'm not opposed to something like this, but I added
> "--verbose-log" specifically for scripted cases, like running an
> unattended "prove" that needs to preserve stdout. When running
> individual tests, I'd just use "-v" itself, and possibly redirect the
> output.
> 
> For my curiosity, can you describe your use case a bit more?

Even when I run individual test scripts by hand, I prefer to have a file catching all output of the test, because I don't like it when the test output floods my terminal (especially with '-x'), and because the file is searchable but the terminal isn't. And that's exactly what '--verbose-log' does.

Redirecting the '-v' output (i.e. stdout) alone is insufficient, because any error messages within the tests and the '-x' trace go to stderr, so they still end up on the terminal. Therefore I would have to remember to redirect stderr every time as well.

I find it's much easier to just always use '--verbose-log'... except for the length of the option, that is, hence this patch.