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[PATCH v4 08/10] test-lib: fail on unexpectedly passing tests

From
Patrick Steinhardt <ps@pks.im>
Date
Jun 2, 2025, 06:44 UTC
Message-ID
<20250602-pks-meson-tap-v4-8-052dfde0818a@pks.im>
In-Reply-To
<20250602-pks-meson-tap-v4-0-052dfde0818a@pks.im>

When tests are executed via `test_expect_failure` we rather obviously expect the test itself to fail. If it unexpectedly does not fail then we count the test as a "fixed" test and announce that a known breakage has vanished:

    ok 1 - setup
    ok 2 - create refs/heads/main # TODO known breakage vanished
    ok 3 - create refs/heads/main with oldvalue verification
    ...
    ok 299 - update-ref should also create reflog for HEAD
    # 1 known breakage(s) vanished; please update test(s)
    # passed all remaining 298 test(s)
    1..299

While we announce that tests should be updated, the overall test suite still passes. This makes it quite hard to detect when a test that has previously failed succeeds now as the developer needs to pay close attention to the exact output. Even more importantly, tests that only succeed on _some_ systems are even easier to miss now, as one would have to explicitly take a look at respective CI jobs to notice that those do pass now.

Furthermore, we are about to introduce support for parsing TAP output in Meson. In contrast to prove(1), which treats unexpected passes as a successful test run, Meson treats those as failure. Neither of these tools is wrong in doing so. Quoting the TAP specification [1]:

    Should a todo test point begin succeeding, the harness may report it
    in some way that indicates that whatever was supposed to be done has
    been, and it should be promoted to a normal Test Point.

So it is essentially implementation-defined how exactly the unexpected pass is reported, and whether it should cause the overall test suite to fail or not. It is unarguably a bad thing for us though if these tools interpret these differently, as it would mean that test results now depend on whether the developer uses prove(1) or Meson.

Unify the behaviour by causing a test suite to fail when there are any unexpected passes. As prove(1) does not consider an unexpected pass to be an error this leads to somewhat funky output:

    t1400-update-ref.sh ................................ Dubious, test returned 1 (wstat 256, 0x100)
    All 299 subtests passed
            (1 TODO test unexpectedly succeeded)
    ...
    Test Summary Report
    -------------------
    t1400-update-ref.sh                              (Wstat: 256 (exited 1) Tests: 299 Failed: 0)
      TODO passed:   2
      Non-zero exit status: 1

But as we directly announce that the root cause is an unexpected TODO that has succeeded it's not all that bad.

[1]: https://testanything.org/tap-version-14-specification.html
Signed-off-by: Patrick Steinhardt <ps@pks.im>
---
 t/t0000-basic.sh | 4 ++--
 t/test-lib.sh    | 9 ++++++++-
 2 files changed, 10 insertions(+), 3 deletions(-)
diff --git a/t/t0000-basic.sh b/t/t0000-basic.sh
index 16b785f3b91..2b63e1c86ca 100755
--- a/t/t0000-basic.sh
+++ b/t/t0000-basic.sh
@@ -130,7 +130,7 @@ test_expect_success 'subtest: a failing TODO test' '
 '
 
 test_expect_success 'subtest: a passing TODO test' '
-	write_and_run_sub_test_lib_test passing-todo <<-\EOF &&
+	write_and_run_sub_test_lib_test_err passing-todo <<-\EOF &&
 	test_expect_failure "pretend we have fixed a known breakage" "true"
 	test_done
 	EOF
@@ -142,7 +142,7 @@ test_expect_success 'subtest: a passing TODO test' '
 '
 
 test_expect_success 'subtest: 2 TODO tests, one passin' '
-	write_and_run_sub_test_lib_test partially-passing-todos <<-\EOF &&
+	write_and_run_sub_test_lib_test_err partially-passing-todos <<-\EOF &&
 	test_expect_failure "pretend we have a known breakage" "false"
 	test_expect_success "pretend we have a passing test" "true"
 	test_expect_failure "pretend we have fixed another known breakage" "true"
diff --git a/t/test-lib.sh b/t/test-lib.sh
index 0a124ffad38..5352209d3e4 100644
--- a/t/test-lib.sh
+++ b/t/test-lib.sh
@@ -1272,7 +1272,14 @@ test_done () {
 
 		check_test_results_san_file_ "$test_failure"
 
-		if test -z "$skip_all" && test -n "$invert_exit_code"
+		if test "$test_fixed" != 0
+		then
+			if test -z "$invert_exit_code"
+			then
+				GIT_EXIT_OK=t
+				exit 1
+			fi
+		elif test -z "$skip_all" && test -n "$invert_exit_code"
 		then
 			say_color warn "# faking up non-zero exit with --invert-exit-code"
 			GIT_EXIT_OK=t
-- 
2.50.0.rc0.629.g846fc57c9e.dirty
Previous: Patrick SteinhardtNext: Patrick Steinhardt
Message 75 of 79 in “meson: parse TAP output generated by our tests”
  1. 0/4 meson: parse TAP output generated by our testsPatrick Steinhardt, May 6, 2025
  2. 1/4 t: fix cases where output breaks TAP formatPatrick Steinhardt, May 6, 2025
  3. Phillip WoodMay 6, 2025
  4. Patrick SteinhardtMay 7, 2025
  5. Phillip WoodMay 7, 2025
  6. Karthik NayakMay 14, 2025
  7. 2/4 t/test-lib: don't print shell traces to stdoutPatrick Steinhardt, May 6, 2025
  8. 3/4 meson: introduce kwargs variable for testsPatrick Steinhardt, May 6, 2025
  9. Karthik NayakMay 15, 2025
  10. 4/4 meson: parse TAP output generated by our testsPatrick Steinhardt, May 6, 2025
  11. Karthik NayakMay 15, 2025
  12. Patrick SteinhardtMay 15, 2025
  13. Karthik NayakMay 15, 2025
  14. Patrick SteinhardtMay 6, 2025
  15. Patrick SteinhardtMay 7, 2025
  16. Patrick SteinhardtMay 21, 2025
  17. Hridoy AhmedMay 21, 2025
  18. Junio C HamanoMay 21, 2025
  19. Junio C HamanoMay 21, 2025
  20. Patrick SteinhardtMay 23, 2025
  21. Patrick SteinhardtMay 23, 2025
  22. Junio C HamanoMay 23, 2025
  23. Ramsay JonesMay 23, 2025
  24. Ramsay JonesMay 23, 2025
  25. Junio C HamanoMay 23, 2025
  26. Patrick SteinhardtMay 26, 2025
  27. Phillip WoodMay 26, 2025
  28. Todd ZullingerMay 26, 2025
  29. Eli SchwartzMay 26, 2025
  30. Patrick SteinhardtMay 26, 2025
  31. Junio C HamanoMay 27, 2025
  32. Patrick SteinhardtMay 28, 2025
  33. Junio C HamanoMay 27, 2025
  34. 0/6 meson: parse TAP output generated by our testsPatrick Steinhardt, May 27, 2025
  35. 1/6 t: fix cases where output breaks TAP formatPatrick Steinhardt, May 27, 2025
  36. Eric SunshineMay 27, 2025
  37. Patrick SteinhardtMay 28, 2025
  38. Eric SunshineMay 28, 2025
  39. Patrick SteinhardtMay 30, 2025
  40. 2/6 t/test-lib: don't print shell traces to stdoutPatrick Steinhardt, May 27, 2025
  41. Junio C HamanoMay 27, 2025
  42. Patrick SteinhardtMay 28, 2025
  43. 3/6 t/test-lib: fix TAP format for BASH_XTRACEFD warningPatrick Steinhardt, May 27, 2025
  44. 4/6 t7815: fix unexpectedly passing test on macOSPatrick Steinhardt, May 27, 2025
  45. 6/6 meson: parse TAP output generated by our testsPatrick Steinhardt, May 27, 2025
  46. 5/6 meson: introduce kwargs variable for testsPatrick Steinhardt, May 27, 2025
  47. 00/10 meson: parse TAP output generated by our testsPatrick Steinhardt, May 30, 2025
  48. 01/10 t: stop announcing prereqsPatrick Steinhardt, May 30, 2025
  49. Karthik NayakMay 31, 2025
  50. 03/10 t9822: use prereq to check for ISO-8859-1 supportPatrick Steinhardt, May 30, 2025
  51. 02/10 t: silence output from `test_create_repo()`Patrick Steinhardt, May 30, 2025
  52. Eric SunshineMay 30, 2025
  53. 04/10 t983*: use prereq to check for Python-specific git-b4(1) supportPatrick Steinhardt, May 30, 2025
  54. Todd ZullingerMay 30, 2025
  55. Patrick SteinhardtMay 30, 2025
  56. 05/10 t/test-lib: don't print shell traces to stdoutPatrick Steinhardt, May 30, 2025
  57. Karthik NayakMay 31, 2025
  58. 06/10 t/test-lib: fix TAP format for BASH_XTRACEFD warningPatrick Steinhardt, May 30, 2025
  59. Karthik NayakMay 31, 2025
  60. 07/10 t7815: fix unexpectedly passing test on macOSPatrick Steinhardt, May 30, 2025
  61. Karthik NayakMay 31, 2025
  62. Kristoffer HaugsbakkJun 1, 2025
  63. Patrick SteinhardtJun 2, 2025
  64. 08/10 test-lib: fail on unexpectedly passing testsPatrick Steinhardt, May 30, 2025
  65. 09/10 meson: introduce kwargs variable for testsPatrick Steinhardt, May 30, 2025
  66. 10/10 meson: parse TAP output generated by our testsPatrick Steinhardt, May 30, 2025
  67. Karthik NayakMay 31, 2025
  68. 00/10 meson: parse TAP output generated by our testsPatrick Steinhardt, Jun 2, 2025
  69. 01/10 t: stop announcing prereqsPatrick Steinhardt, Jun 2, 2025
  70. 02/10 t: silence output from `test_create_repo()`Patrick Steinhardt, Jun 2, 2025
  71. 03/10 t9822: use prereq to check for ISO-8859-1 supportPatrick Steinhardt, Jun 2, 2025
  72. 04/10 t983*: use prereq to check for Python-specific git-p4(1) supportPatrick Steinhardt, Jun 2, 2025
  73. 06/10 t/test-lib: fix TAP format for BASH_XTRACEFD warningPatrick Steinhardt, Jun 2, 2025
  74. 05/10 t/test-lib: don't print shell traces to stdoutPatrick Steinhardt, Jun 2, 2025
  75. 08/10 test-lib: fail on unexpectedly passing testsPatrick Steinhardt, Jun 2, 2025
  76. 07/10 t7815: fix unexpectedly passing test on macOSPatrick Steinhardt, Jun 2, 2025
  77. 09/10 meson: introduce kwargs variable for testsPatrick Steinhardt, Jun 2, 2025
  78. 10/10 meson: parse TAP output generated by our testsPatrick Steinhardt, Jun 2, 2025
  79. Karthik NayakJun 2, 2025

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