Re: [PATCH 2/5] tests: respect GIT_TEST_INSTALLED when initializing repositories

From: Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>
Date: Nov 14, 2018, 14:59 UTC
Message-ID: <xmqqa7mbn1r4.fsf@gitster-ct.c.googlers.com>
In-Reply-To: <nycvar.QRO.7.76.6.1811141413170.39@tvgsbejvaqbjf.bet>

Johannes Schindelin <Johannes.Schindelin@gmx.de> writes:

Show 5 quoted lines

> It would make sense, but we don't know how to get that information, do we?
> ...
> And changing the code *now* to let us query Git where it thinks its
> templates should be won't work, as this patch is about using the installed
> Git (at whatever pre-compiled version that might be).

It won't work, but we can add something like "git var templatedir" to help those who want to further improve the test-installed mode next year, preparing for better future by sowing seeds now.

In the meantime, using the same temlate dir as before is probably the best we can do. Two and a half tangential thoughts are:

 - But then, we need to make sure $GIT_BUILD_DIR/templates/blt/
   is populated, if we do rely on them (i.e. we probably want to
   make sure we have built).

 - Yet, once installed, the contents of the templatedir can be
   arbitrarily munged by the end user, so anything that depends on
   what is in the template won't work as a reliable test piece.

 - Among what's in templates/blt/, we explicitly disable hooks at
   the beginning of the test repository creation to ensure no hooks
   interfere what we test by default, but we will get affected by
   what is in info/excludes.  The contents of freshly-built one is
   empty, so it is unlikely that this will cause problems, but if we
   use installed templates, we cannot control what's in there,
   letting the tests get affected to random things the end-user
   happens to have.

So after all, if we were to change anything, it might make better sense not to install anything from any templatedir.

But of course, that is orthogonal to the test-install mode. If we want to make the test more robust by emptying the templates, we should do that also for the test-freshly-baked mode, too.