Re: some glitches in make test-all

[Bill Allombert <Bill.Allombert@math.u-bordeaux1.fr>]

On Wed, Jul 21, 2010 at 10:10:27PM +0100, John Cremona wrote:
> On 21 July 2010 21:55, Bill Allombert
> <Bill.Allombert@math.u-bordeaux1.fr> wrote:
> > On Wed, Jul 21, 2010 at 12:04:59PM +0100, John Cremona wrote:
> >> I was able to fix my specific problem (opting not to test
> >> ellglobalred) by changing line 7 of config/get_tests from
> >>
> >> test_extra_out="ploth"
> >>
> >> to
> >>
> >> test_extra_out="ploth ellglobalred"
> >>
> >> Now, it should not be hard to make this automatic by testing the
> >> existence of the data directory $GP_DATA_DIR/elldata and similarly to
> >> include ell-sea in that list iff  $GP_DATA_DIR/seadata does not exist.
> >>  By scripting skills are not so good, and I'm sure the person who
> >> wrote get_tests could do that faster and more reliably than me!
> >
> > Well, the purpose of 'make test-all' is to test everything (as long as we have
> > written tests), so this requires potentially that all the optional packages are
> > installed.  Making a commitment that 'make test-all' will work with
> > such-and-such subset of the packages would not make sense.  So would blindly
> > omiting tests, because the user would assume the tests did pass while they were
> > not performed at all.
> 
> I disagree!     A user who does not need the elliptic curve database
> will clearly not install it;  but he is then told that there is a bug
> in ellglobalred, which is misleading.  I am just suggesting that
> make-all acts like make-all-installed.

Building PARI does not usually imply running 'make test-all', sot the user will not be told
that test-ellglobalred fail.

The only mention of 'make test-all' in the documentation is

\subsubsec{Heavy-duty testing} [{\sl Optional\/}]
There are a few extra tests which should be useful only for developers.
 ...
\kbd{make test-all} runs all available test suites. Slow. Some of the
tests require the extra packages to be installed.

I do not see why PARI users would run it and be confused.

Cheers,
Bill.