On Fri, Aug 02, 2019 at 03:02:35PM -0700, Josh Steadmon wrote:

+test_expect_success "don't overload target directory" '
+	mkdir trace_target_dir &&
+	test_when_finished "rm -r trace_target_dir" &&
+	(
+		GIT_TRACE2_MAX_FILES=5 &&
+		export GIT_TRACE2_MAX_FILES &&
+		cd trace_target_dir &&
+		test_seq $GIT_TRACE2_MAX_FILES >../expected_filenames.txt &&
+		xargs touch <../expected_filenames.txt &&
+		cd .. &&
+		ls trace_target_dir >first_ls_output.txt &&
+		test_cmp expected_filenames.txt first_ls_output.txt &&

Nit: what's the purpose of this 'ls' and 'test_cmp'?

It looks like they check that xargs created all the files it was told
to create.  I think that this falls into the category "We are not in
the business of verifying that the world given to us sanely works."
and is unnecessary.

+		GIT_TRACE2="$(pwd)/trace_target_dir" test-tool trace2 001return 0
+	) &&
+	echo git-trace2-overload >>expected_filenames.txt &&
+	ls trace_target_dir >second_ls_output.txt &&
+	test_cmp expected_filenames.txt second_ls_output.txt
+'
+
 test_done