tests/README: warn about zsh incompatibilities.

* tests/README (User interface, Getting details from failures):
Explicitly state that every test is a "shell script", not just
a "script", and that it's run by `/bin/sh' by default.
* tests/README (User interface, Supported shells): New subsection,
telling about expected portability of the automake test scripts,
describing a zsh incompatibility (w.r.t. $0), and a workaround to
it (with the `--no-function-argzero' option).

Signed-off-by: Ralf Wildenhues <Ralf.Wildenhues@gmx.de>

diff --git a/ChangeLog b/ChangeLog
index 4e6b03c33e0bb6c16096c9aec9e60a147418176f..70f63085d43d77037c112aa27ee319691213d598 100644 (file)
--- a/ChangeLog
+++ b/ChangeLog
@@ -1,5 +1,14 @@
 2009-09-06  Stefano Lattarini  <stefano.lattarini@gmail.com>  (tiny change)
 
+       tests/README: warn about zsh incompatibilities.
+       * tests/README (User interface, Getting details from failures):
+       Explicitly state that every test is a "shell script", not just
+       a "script", and that it's run by `/bin/sh' by default.
+       * tests/README (User interface, Supported shells): New subsection,
+       telling about expected portability of the automake test scripts,
+       describing a zsh incompatibility (w.r.t. $0), and a workaround to
+       it (with the `--no-function-argzero' option).
+
        testsuite: fix a minor glitch.
        * tests/defs.in (exit trap): Use `$me', not `$as_me', as the
        name of the current test (used in error messages).

diff --git a/tests/README b/tests/README
index c4ff407f105263c265ffee1bc3d3034f2c34c705..b264881b39d2f94fac50b0bdbc7753dee420e626 100644 (file)
--- a/tests/README
+++ b/tests/README
@@ -14,6 +14,7 @@ Running all tests
   uniprocessor system, due to unavoidable sleep delays, as
   noted below).
 
+
 Interpretation
 --------------
 
@@ -32,18 +33,38 @@ Interpretation
 Getting details from failures
 -----------------------------
 
-  Each test is a script.  In a non-VPATH build you can run them
-  directly, they will be verbose.  By default, verbose output of
-  a test foo.test is retained in the log file foo.log.  A summary
-  log is created in the file test-suite.log.
+  Each test is a shell script, and by default is run by /bin/sh.
+  In a non-VPATH build you can run them directly, they will be verbose.
+  By default, verbose output of a test foo.test is retained in the log
+  file foo.log.  A summary log is created in the file test-suite.log.
 
-  You can limit the set of files using the TESTS variable, and
-  enable detailed test output at the end of the test run with the
-  VERBOSE variable:
+  You can limit the set of files using the TESTS variable, and enable
+  detailed test output at the end of the test run with the VERBOSE
+  variable:
 
     env VERBOSE=x TESTS='first.test second.test ...' make -e check
 
 
+Supported shells
+----------------
+
+  The test scripts are written with portability in mind, so that they
+  should run with any decent Bourne-compatible shell.
+
+  However, some care must be used with Zsh, since, when not directly
+  starting in Bourne-compatibility mode, it has some incompatibilities
+  in the handling of `$0' which conflict with our usage, and which have
+  no easy workaround.  Thus, if you want to run a test script, say
+  foo.test, with Zsh, you *can't* simply do `zsh foo.test', but you
+  *must* resort to:
+    zsh --no-function-argzero foo.test
+
+  Note that this problem does not occur if zsh is executed through a
+  symlink with a basename of `sh', since in that case it starts
+  in Bourne compatibility mode.  So you should be perfectly safe when
+  /bin/sh is zsh.
+
+
 Reporting failures
 ------------------