* Stefano Lattarini wrote on Tue, Sep 07, 2010 at 06:00:04PM CEST: > Darn, I've been sloppy: I should have also asked you to provide > us with the (tarred) content of the temporary test directory > `tests/silent5.dir'. Could you kindly send this over to the list > too? > > (<NOTE> to self and to Ralf: it would be nice if the Automake > testsuite could create, whenever a failure occurs, a tarball containg > all the relevant logs and the contents of all relevant temporary test > directories, to avoid plaguing the poor bug reporters with continuos > requests of more details </NOTE>)
Actually, I haven't come across many test failures where more information was necessary. At least in this case I think it was crystal clear from the silent5.log file, no? ;-) One practical problem with sending test directory contents by default is that they can be pretty large. When multiple failures occur, say, all Libtool-related tests fail due to a Libtool installation bug, we're speaking of several MB packed. I don't really want this sent to a public mailing list read by dozens of people. Autotest is better in this regard, in that it allows more fine-grained logging in case of failure. Of course we can do it, too, with some more manual extra work in the tests; still, this work might be more than the occasional extra question for a user. Cheers, Ralf
