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Date: Wed, 26 Oct 2005 11:32:49 +0200
From: Corinna Vinschen <corinna-cygwin AT cygwin DOT com>
To: cygwin AT cygwin DOT com
Subject: Re: another manifestation of the .. bug
Message-ID: <20051026093249.GC15340@calimero.vinschen.de>
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References: <435E2E2B DOT 9090306 AT byu DOT net> <20051025132731 DOT GX27476 AT calimero DOT vinschen DOT de> <435EE3A9 DOT 4050907 AT byu DOT net>
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On Oct 25 20:02, Eric Blake wrote:
> According to Corinna Vinschen on 10/25/2005 7:27 AM:
> > And I really can't see how "one testcase fails because Cygwin allows
> > something which should fail according to POSIX" qualifies for "coreutils
> > doesn't work out of the box on Cygwin".  Does the coreutils testsuite
> > not allow per-target XFAILs?
> 
> Coreutils already won't pass the testsuite out of the box on cygwin due to
> other problems, where I am also maintaining cygwin-specific patches; my
> point was that if cygwin is ever fixed, it is one less workaround needing
> my maintainence.  As for the coreutils testsuite, it does not have
> per-target XFAILs, but does have the ability to SKIP tests that are known
> to be invalid if various pre-screening tests show that a platform won't
> support the feature being tested.  However, among all the platforms that
> coreutils is currently ported to, my understanding is that cygwin is the
> only platform that would need such an exemption to skip such tests due to
> the lack of POSIX semantics.

My point is that I'm happy to make Cygwin mostly POSIX compatible, but
that implementing all crude border cases sometimes has more negative
impact in other areas (one of them: speed), than it does help to make
Cygwin useful (I hear cgf falling from his chair and rolling on the
floor laughing in the background).

I'm also inclined to find the coreutils testsuite not overly useful.
What exactly is the coreutils testsuite testing, coreutils or the
underlying OS?  Tests like the above are testing the OS, but that's not
the job of the *coreutils* testsuite, that's the job of a POSIX
compatibility testsuite.

And, *if* the coreutils testsuite tests POSIX compatibility of the
underlying OS, then what is that good for, if not to allow coreutils to
workaround OS kinks in coreutils itself?

After all, Cygwin is not a POSIX OS, it's just an emulation layer and we
already have to do a lot of handstands using the standard Win32 API.
It's ok to get hints where the POSIX compatibility isn't given, but I'm
a bit annoyed right now, since you're just repeating the same point over
and over again.  It doesn't really help since it neither changes the
fact that we already know the problem, nor does it change the fact that
this is a definitive border case.  Just out of curiosity, does
CYGWIN=traverse help here?

Btw, we're only two persons investing more than just a few minutes per
week on Cygwin development and we only have so much time and energy.
Hence you'll see SHTDI and PTC that often.


Corinna

-- 
Corinna Vinschen                  Please, send mails regarding Cygwin to
Cygwin Project Co-Leader          cygwin AT cygwin DOT com
Red Hat, Inc.

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