libctf and libsframe testing

[Nick Alcock]

On 7 Aug 2025, Indu Bhagat outgrape:
> On 8/5/25 12:27 PM, Nick Alcock wrote:
>> On 5 Aug 2025, Jan Beulich stated:
>> 
>>> On 05.08.2025 13:43, Nick Alcock wrote:
>>>> On 1 Aug 2025, Jan Beulich stated:
>>>>
>>>>> Hello,
>>>>>
>>>>> just came to notice that the testsuite runs are all building binaries for the
>>>>> host, not the target.
>>>>
>>>> Well... the libctf testsuite should be building binaries for both,
>>>> actually. libctf itself is a host library, with no target-dependent
>>>> components (it leans on bfd for those), so we do want to test it on the
>>>> host: that's where it'sll run.
>>>>
>>>> ... *however*. The binaries the testsuite builds fall into two
>>>> categories:
>>>>
>>>>   - "lookup binaries", which are executed on the host: some just do their
>>>>     own thing using libctf API calls, but others (e.g. in libctf-lookup/)
>>>>     are used to inspect...
>>>>   - ... object files and linked binaries which contain CTF. These are
>>>>     built with the target compiler, or should be.
>>>
>>> Provided there is one, that is. I surely don't have some 150 cross compilers
>>> installed.
>> Yeah, this is skipped if the target compiler is not available.
>> 
>>>> The compilation of both these binaries happens in
>>>> libctf/testsuite/lib/ctf-lib.exp:run_lookup_test(), if you're
>>>> interested. They are driven by *.lk files: any *.lk files which do not
>>>> specify a source: are building lookup binaries only, on the host.
>>>>
>>>>>                         While this may be sensible when testing an individual
>>>>> target, (afaict) it's doing all the same over and over when doing bulk tests.
>>>>> I couldn't spot any means (e.g. an env var) to override this behavior, i.e.
>>>>> optionally suppress such redundant testing. If there is one, could you please
>>>>> point me in the right direction? If there is none, can something be added?
>>>>
>>>> ... sure: we could at least not rerun those tests that don't use source:
>>>> at all. I wonder what the least horrible approach would be... maybe a
>>>> configure flag to ask run_lookup_test to quietly do nothing if host !=
>>>> target and source: is not in use?
>>>
>>> Well, that's precisely what I don't know, or else I might have preferred to
>>> post a patch.
>> I guess a configure flag to libctf/configure.ac might do it. I'll see if
>> I can whip one up this week, before the summer holiday.
>
> As for libsframe, which is also a host library, all tests so far need to be run for the host.
>
> Skipping the libsframe testsuite for host != target when doing bulk tests is fine.  I too think that it makes sense to add a
> configure option (--disable-lisbframe-tests?) so they are skipped only when the usecase is doing bulk tests (and host != target).

If multiple libs need this sort of thing, maybe we want a
--disable-host-tests option which disables such tests for both of them
when host != target?

-- 
NULL && (void)