Subject: Re: bug#8846: coreutils-8.12 on HP-UX 11.31: 3 of 365 tests failed

From: Jim Meyering <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 14 Jun 2011 10:11:25 +0200

Here's what I expect to do for coreutils,
along with an advice-update for gnulib's init.sh:

>From e948173c1c461aac9f1c490061b257f55e42608d Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
From: Jim Meyering <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 14 Jun 2011 09:59:14 +0200
Subject: [PATCH] tests: accommodate HP-UX and Solaris shells

Running "make check" normally prints a diagnostic to the outermost
stderr (usually a tty) to explain why a test is skipped.  It did this
by redirecting FD 9 to stderr (via "exec 9>&2") before invoking the
shell script.  Shell scripts write skip-explanation to FD 9 via
init.sh's skip_ function.  However, with Solaris 10's ksh and HP-UX,
the effects of "exec 9>&2" are canceled upon fork-and-exec, so we
would get a "Bad file number" diagnostic and no skip explanation on
those systems.
* tests/check.mk (TESTS_ENVIRONMENT): Redirect more portably, via
$(SHELL) "$$1" 9>&2, rather than the prior
exec 9>&2; $(SHELL) ...
Actually, we use "shell_or_perl_ 9>&2", to make this effective
also for the perl-based tests.
* tests/init.sh (stderr_fileno_): Update the advice in comments.
See http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.comp.gnu.coreutils.bugs/22488
for lots of discussion.  Stefano Lattarini suggested the solution
of putting "9>&2" after the command.  Reported by Bruno Haible.
---
 tests/check.mk |    3 +--
 tests/init.sh  |    4 ++--
 2 files changed, 3 insertions(+), 4 deletions(-)

diff --git a/tests/check.mk b/tests/check.mk
index db7f067..9db96af 100644
--- a/tests/check.mk
+++ b/tests/check.mk
@@ -58,7 +58,6 @@ TESTS_ENVIRONMENT =				\
   test -d "$$tmp__" && test -w "$$tmp__" || tmp__=.;	\
   . $(srcdir)/envvar-check;			\
   TMPDIR=$$tmp__; export TMPDIR;		\
-  exec 9>&2;					\
   shell_or_perl_() {				\
     if grep '^\#!/usr/bin/perl' "$$1" > /dev/null; then			\
       if $(PERL) -e 'use warnings' > /dev/null 2>&1; then		\
@@ -100,6 +99,6 @@ TESTS_ENVIRONMENT =				\
   REPLACE_GETCWD=$(REPLACE_GETCWD)		\
   ; test -d /usr/xpg4/bin && PATH='/usr/xpg4/bin$(PATH_SEPARATOR)'"$$PATH"; \
   PATH='$(abs_top_builddir)/src$(PATH_SEPARATOR)'"$$PATH" \
-  ; shell_or_perl_
+  ; shell_or_perl_ 9>&2

 VERBOSE = yes
diff --git a/tests/init.sh b/tests/init.sh
index 60d1bc1..a769d8b 100644
--- a/tests/init.sh
+++ b/tests/init.sh
@@ -68,8 +68,8 @@ Exit () { set +e; (exit $1); exit $1; }

 # Print warnings (e.g., about skipped and failed tests) to this file number.
 # Override by defining to say, 9, in init.cfg, and putting say,
-# "export ...ENVVAR_SETTINGS...; exec 9>&2; $(SHELL)" in the definition
-# of TESTS_ENVIRONMENT in your tests/Makefile.am file.
+#   export ...ENVVAR_SETTINGS...; $(SHELL) "$$1" 9>&2
+# in the definition of TESTS_ENVIRONMENT in your tests/Makefile.am file.
 # This is useful when using automake's parallel tests mode, to print
 # the reason for skip/failure to console, rather than to the .log files.
 : ${stderr_fileno_=2}
--
1.7.6.rc0.293.g40857