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Re: git-2.55.0-rc1 t4216 broken TAP failures on non-x86 arch

From
Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>
Date
Jun 18, 2026, 22:10 UTC
Message-ID
<xmqq4iizpkig.fsf@gitster.g>
In-Reply-To
<ajOP1IOjA3EYvRfm@pks.im>
Patrick Steinhardt <ps@pks.im> writes:
Show 18 quoted lines
>> Building git-2.55.0-rc1 today, all non-x86 architectures
>> failed with:
>>  ...
>> This looks like it comes from the following chunk of code in
>> the test:
>> 
>>     # expect will not match actual if char is unsigned by default. Write the test
>>     # in this way, so that a user running this test script can still see if the two
>>     # files match. (It will appear as an ordinary success if they match, and a skip
>>     # if not.)
>>     if test_cmp highbit1/expect highbit1/actual
>>     then
>> 	    test_set_prereq SIGNED_CHAR_BY_DEFAULT
>>     fi
>>     test_expect_success SIGNED_CHAR_BY_DEFAULT 'check value of version 1 changed-path' '
>> 	    # Only the prereq matters for this test.
>> 	    true
>>     '

The "problematic" part is from mid 2024, so it is not anything new in 2.55-rc1, is it? Nobody built and ran tests for the past two years on non-x86 boxes?

Show 13 quoted lines
> Hm, this thing is indeed somewhat puzzling to me. I assume the intent is
> to give the developer some information that their platform is using
> signed characters by default? Other than that it's not really doing
> anything, as the prereq is only used by the one test shown above. I hope
> that Taylor has some more insight here.
>
> There's two potential fixes:
>
>   - We can just drop this completely, as it ultimately doesn't even end
>     up doing anything.
>
>   - We can convert the call to `test_cmp` into a `test_lazy_prereq`,
>     like done in the below patch, which retains the current behaviour.

Yeah, unless Taylor can tell us something we are not seeing, I am inclined to say that we can just get rid of the whole thing. SIGNED_CHAR_BY_DEFAULT is not used anywhere else, and the only place it is used isd to run "true".

Previous: Patrick SteinhardtNext: Jeff King
Message 3 of 6 in “git-2.55.0-rc1 t4216 broken TAP failures on non-x86 arch”
  1. Todd ZullingerJun 17, 2026
  2. Patrick SteinhardtJun 18, 2026
  3. Junio C HamanoJun 18, 2026
  4. Jeff KingJun 18, 2026
  5. Junio C HamanoJun 19, 2026
  6. Patrick SteinhardtJun 19, 2026

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