Re: [RFC PATCH 0/3] Introduce clar testing framework

On Wed, Jul 31, 2024 at 08:51:00AM -0700, Junio C Hamano wrote:

Patrick Steinhardt [off-list ref] writes:

quoted

  - The clar gives us the ability to pick which tests to run via command
    line parameters, which I personally like more than picking the
    specific binary to run.

One thing I am very unhappy about the current t/unit-tests/ is that
the GIT_SKIP_TESTS mechanism is not effective at all.  If we can
wrap clar's test selection syntax inside t/Makefile to work with
GIT_SKIP_TESTS (or its superset equivalent), that would be a great
plus.

Yeah, I guess that shouldn't be too hard.

quoted

  - The clar replaces some test assertions that we already have. They
    feel a bit more mature, but overall there aren't all that many
    assertions available. If we wanted to pick it up, then we'd likely
    have to add some more wrappers.

That is a slight bummer, as importing an externally developed one is
with the hope that we won't have to enhance or maintain it, but
we'll see how much burden it will be.

The clar exposes generic helpers like `cl_assert`, but also comparison
functions like `cl_assert_equal_$t` for pointers, integers and strings.
If anything is missing, it also exposes the building blocks to add
project-specific assertions so that it would be easy to add for example
`cl_assert_equal_oid`.

One thing I have been missing is non-equality comparisons like
`cl_assert_lt_i`/`cl_assert_gt_i`. But adding that to the clar itself
and upstreaming it should be easy enough, also because we know the
people maintaining it.

Other than that I think it's mostly fine and should serve as a good
baseline.

Patrick