Subject: Re: Module suggestion: timeout

From: Marc Nieper-Wißkirchen <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 30 Apr 2021 11:47:14 +0200

Adding timeout to all build operations automatically is probably too much
and too intrusive.

But in any case, it should be easy to add such a timeout to certain build
operations (e.g. downloading, running a compiler for which the halting
problem cannot be solved, testing a production binary, ...).

Am Fr., 30. Apr. 2021 um 11:43 Uhr schrieb Simon Josefsson <
[email-masked]>:

> Marc Nieper-Wißkirchen <[email-masked]> writes:
>
> > Moreover, use cases for a baked-in timeout are not restricted to tests.
> For
> > example, I may want to restrict the build time of certain components in
> > situations where a logical error may lead to infinite build times (a
> simple
> > example is that of a Scheme compiler used as a build tool; thanks to
> > Turing-completeness of Scheme macros, such a build may not terminate).
>
> This makes me believe even stronger that the functionality ought to be
> provided by automake natively -- it seems the desired functionality is
> not only timeouts for self-tests but timeouts for all operations.
>
> Implementing this for self-tests in automake would probably be quite
> simple, but implementing it for all operations is probably more
> complicated.  Maybe it should be two separate features.  I have wanted
> timeouts for self-tests but rarely for building.  If the second is more
> complicated to implement, maybe starting with the first will be
> sufficient and useful.
>
> /Simon
>