Re: Recent simulator patches broke many sims

[Hans-Peter Nilsson <hans-peter dot nilsson at axis dot com>]

> From: Mike Frysinger <vapier@gentoo.org>
> Date: Tue, 26 Mar 2013 17:25:39 +0100

On Sunday 24 March 2013 19:23:28 Hans-Peter Nilsson wrote:
> > From: Joel Sherrill <joel.sherrill@oarcorp.com>
> > Date: Sun, 24 Mar 2013 15:45:27 +0100
> > 
> > This came in after I was done email last night. My test
> > run finished overnight with no horribly bad issues. I have no idea
> > what the make check results should be though and they could be
> > because I simply ran "make check" with no board specified and
> > no gcc for the target installed.
> 
> This would be no news to *you*, but for the record:
> 
> You need a board (make check RUNTESTFLAGS=--target_board=$board
> with e.g. board=cris-sim).  All boards are in "recent"
> dejagnu-1.5 IIRC and most in ancient dejagnu-1.4.4.  You need
> installed binutils (e.g. in some temp location added to PATH for
> the duration of the test-run) for each sim configuration as
> mentioned.  I don't run with target gcc; not needed for the
> level of smoke test I'm after and I guess not for this change
> either.

> that's not entirely true.  many (all but cris?)

I don't think it's different but I don't plan to test without...

> sims run &
> pass just fine without needing to explicitly pass magic flags.

It is entirely true that when a board is specified, all work.

Now that you mention it, someone *did* do some changes to allow
simulator tests to run without specifying a board - IIRC in some
situations, assuming no special linker flags or such needed and
no compiler toolchain (or no flags or libraries using simulator
hooks).  Reading ChangeLogs it seems it was you, on 2010-04-26.

> i know the Blackfin and frv sims can build & run pretty much
> all their tests w/out requiring board flags.
> 
> imo, requiring manual board selection like this is archaic for
> no good reason.

One good reason IMO is that when specifying a board, all
toolchain parts test alike, rather than sim (after 2010-04-26)
being a special case (and binutils, mostly for not needing to
run things to avoid FAILs or hanging tests).

> i never test sims with specific flags, nor do i plan on starting.  `make check-
> sim` is my limit of testing.

I guess by "never" you don't refer to the time before
2010-04-26. :)  *Before* the mentioned change, you *had* to, or
all sim runs would hang, which arguably wasn't very graceful...

brgds, H-P