Subject: Re: Document how to debug failing tests

From: Bruno Haible <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 14 May 2024 14:13:16 +0200

In fact, the recipe is more relevant for skipped tests (since for failed
tests, tests/testsuite.dir/NNN/ is kept by default, whereas for skipped
tests it is deleted by default).

Here's an update of the proposed patch.

>From af5ef765d2c6c2720b1f1e52aecf40db018f4357 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
From: Bruno Haible <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 14 May 2024 13:25:51 +0200
Subject: [PATCH 1/2] Document how to debug failing or skipped tests.

* HACKING (Test Suite): Explain how to debug a range of tests.
---
 HACKING | 6 ++++++
 1 file changed, 6 insertions(+)

diff --git a/HACKING b/HACKING
index 20d65e9a..8eea9f7d 100644
--- a/HACKING
+++ b/HACKING
@@ -76,6 +76,12 @@ and is not part of a release distribution.
   AT_CHECK) is on a single line so that 'testsuite -x' displays the
   whole thing.  You can use m4_do or '[... ]dnl' to wrap long lines.
 
+* To debug a failing or skipped range of tests, e.g. 13 to 14:
+    make check-local TESTSUITEFLAGS="--debug 13-14"
+  More generally, in the TESTSUITEFLAGS you can use the documented
+  options for Autotest generated testsuites:
+  https://www.gnu.org/savannah-checkouts/gnu/autoconf/manual/autoconf-2.72/html_node/testsuite-Invocation.html
+
 * Run tests in parallel with
     make -k check TESTSUITEFLAGS="--jobs=$(nproc)"
   liberally, on as many platforms as you can.  Use as many compilers and
-- 
2.34.1