Thomas Rast <trast@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> writes: > On Wednesday 14 December 2011 19:07:35 Junio C Hamano wrote: >> Thomas Rast <trast@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> writes: >> > The perf-lib work wants this feature, so we may as well do it for >> > test-lib in general. >> >> How is this different from what GIT_TEST_INSTALLED already gives us >> (other than "needs more diskspace to keep another source tree fully >> built", that is)? > > I was scared away by the note that it would use (among others) perl > libs from the current build tree. Upon investigation I also see that > the test-* situation is still not satisfactory. Some (like > test-chmtime) are used by the tests for a vital task, and if they ever > have to be fixed, we would want to use the fixed version in any "test > an old git" run. OTOH, others (e.g., test-dump-cache-tree) are linked > with the rest of the code and serve to test an otherwise not > accessible part of it, and testing an old git should use them from the > tested tree. Okay, so GIT_BUILD_DIR variant should now use everything from the tree being tested for consistency to improve the situation, right? Ehh, not quite, if you worry about an old one having broken test-chmtime, you actively do not want that consistency; how is that addressed? Not that I think we should address such issues---these standalone programs tend to be small and simple, so always using them from the tree being tested is a much better policy than using them from the tree you are running the tests from. > The disk space argument is moot IMO: I was not really worried about "space" (disks are cheap) but more about mental burden of having to keep multiple build trees in the source area. Keeping multiple installed versions is already necessary to be able to quickly respond to "I am using Git version X and this does not work". -- To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe git" in the body of a message to majordomo@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html