Subject: bug#9400: parallel-tests doesn't support `-' character in test extensions

From: Stefano Lattarini <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 29 Aug 2011 13:59:09 +0200

I catched this while working some more on the Automake testsuite:

 $ cat Makefile.am
 TEST_EXTENSIONS = .t-1
 TESTS = foo.t-1
 $ cat configure.ac
 AC_INIT([foo], [1.0])
 AM_INIT_AUTOMAKE([foreign -Wall parallel-tests])
 AC_CONFIG_FILES([Makefile])
 AC_OUTPUT
 $ aclocal
 $ autoconf
 $ : > install-sh
 $ : > missing
 $ automake
 automake: bad characters in variable name `T-1_LOG_COMPILE'
 automake: T-1_LOG_COMPILER: non-POSIX variable name
 automake: AM_T-1_LOG_FLAGS: non-POSIX variable name
 automake: T-1_LOG_FLAGS: non-POSIX variable name

Do you think it would be worthwhile to lift this limitation, by
automatically transliterating `-' (and maybe other non-alphabetic
characters) to `_'?  Or should we simply give an error when something
in $(TEST_EXTENSIONS) contains non-alphabetic characters?

Regards,
  Stefano