Re: [PATCH v2] tests: modernize the test script t0010-racy-git.sh

From: Eric Sunshine <sunshine@sunshineco.com>
Date: Feb 29, 2024, 23:52 UTC
Message-ID: <CAPig+cSGtcA15aOmvj07Uv-pFZTE58+9gGsQh=8K4BL4KRieQA@mail.gmail.com>
In-Reply-To: <xmqqa5nic06t.fsf@gitster.g>

On Thu, Feb 29, 2024 at 6:36 PM Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com> wrote:

Show 10 quoted lines

> Eric Sunshine <sunshine@sunshineco.com> writes:
> > If taking it to this extent, then the modernized version of the last
> > couple lines would be:
> >
> >     git diff-files -p >out &&
> >     test_file_not_empty out
>
> Yes.  The modern style seems to prefer temporary files over
> variables; the reason probably is because it tends to be easier to
> remotely post-mortem?

Yes, that seems likely. Functions such as test_file_not_empty() also provide an immediate indication of what went wrong without having to spelunk the test detritus:

    'foo' is not a non-empty file. [*]

whereas `test "" != "$foo"` provides no output at all, so it's not immediately clear which part of the test failed. Peff's `verbose` function was intended to mitigate that problem by making the expression verbose upon failure:

    verbose test "" != "$foo" &&

but never really caught on and was eventually retired by 8ddfce7144 (t: drop "verbose" helper function, 2023-05-08).

[*]: Admittedly, the double-negative in "'foo' is not a non-empty file." is more than a little confusing. It probably would have been better phrased as "'foo' should be empty but is not".