[gentoo-dev] Re: [RFC] Handling of test USE flag in ebuilds

[Ryan Hill]

On Thu, 16 Sep 2010 22:42:02 +0200
Thomas Sachau <tommy@g.o> wrote:

> Controling the test USE flag alone without the test FEATURE is useless, since it wont run the
> src_test phase.

...then don't do that? :P

> And being able to disable the test USE flag with FEATURES=test will result in
> missing deps or build-system args.

Add something like this to the beginning of the default src_test:

	hasq test $USE || return 0

I'm sure there's a reason it won't work I'm not thinking of, but that's
the jist of the idea.

> Can you tell me any reason, why you want to expose and control
> the test USE flag independently of FEATURES=test?
 
So it can be controlled on a per-package basis?  Circular dependencies,
unwanted dependencies, excessive testsuites, perpetually failing testsuites
that no one bothers to fix...  You can mask the flag but it's inconsistant
and unintuitive.  FWIW I currently have 22 packages that have the test flag
masked in package.use.mask, and probably a dozen more I just haven't gotten
around to masking.

In any case, this is straying off topic.  I believe the current policy is
this: if your package's test suite requires extra dependencies, add a test
USE flag and make them conditional on that.  I don't think there's any reason
it should change.


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