Re: [PATCH] Several tests: cd inside subshell instead of around

From: Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>
Date: Sep 7, 2010, 05:08 UTC
Message-ID: <7vlj7ep2ch.fsf@alter.siamese.dyndns.org>
In-Reply-To: <20100907023713.GJ1182@burratino>

Jonathan Nieder <jrnieder@gmail.com> writes:

Show 9 quoted lines

> Junio C Hamano wrote:
>
>> If we were to insist that no matter how an individual test fail, the test
>> that follows it must start in a known location (namely, $TRASH), then we
>> might want to use something like the attached patch.
>
> I like it.  Affected test scripts:
> ... (many) ...
> and probably some others.

For the record, I _do not_ like it at all. Is it worth being that draconian and say each test must start at $TRASH? What do we gain by it?

We certainly do _not_ want any test to wander around, escape out of the $TRASH directory and running random "git" command, but as long as N+1th test knows and expects Nth test might move to a subdirectory of $TRASH and is prepared to start, I personally do not think it is such a big deal. It certainly makes it harder to insert a new test between such a pair of tests, but like it or not, many of the tests already depend on the state of the repository that earlier tests left behind. I think we could just declare that $cwd is just a small part of that initial state for individual test that was left behind the earlier test.

After we vet and apply Jens and your "turn 'cd there && do this && cd ..' into a subshell" series, and the "modernize indentation style" series, perhaps we should stop and think? In an ideal world, it would be really nice if each "test_expect_success/failure" in a single script were independent from each other (if we did so, GIT_SKIP_TESTS=4321.4 starts to be more useful), but realistically, I don't think it is worth the effort.

So it may be worth it to check $(pwd) against $TRASH and make sure we didn't escape $TRASH by mistake at the beginning of each test in test_run_ function, but to me, "must be at $TRASH" feels like a rule for the sake of it, without really helping us very much.