tests: accommodate HP-UX and ksh-derived 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 ksh and HP-UX's /bin/sh,
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) 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.

diff --git a/tests/check.mk b/tests/check.mk
index db7f067..9db96af 100644 (file)
--- 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..4a52626 100644 (file)
--- 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) 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}