Re: [PATCH 1/2] gdb/testsuite: avoid creating files in gdb/testsuite directory

[Pedro Alves <pedro@palves.net>]

On 2022-10-04 10:08 a.m., Andrew Burgess wrote:
> Pedro Alves <pedro@palves.net> writes:

>> I'm glad you guys found this alternative approach.  I was going to suggest
>> to see if we could avoid changing directory, the "cd" approach IMO should be
>> avoided if possible.  The reason is that when you change gdb's directory to
>> the test's output dir, if GDB crashes and produces a core on teardown, then that core will
>> end up in the test's output directory, and thus won't be noticed by the spurious core
>> detection, i.e., won't be signaled in gdb.sum.
> 
> What if I added a mechanism to lib/gdb.exp that allowed for something
> like:
> 
>   with_change_gdb_directory $some_directory {
>     # A set of tests here...
>   }
> 
> and had the with_change_gdb_directory proc check that GDB was still
> running at the end of the block.
> 
> This way, when the test script ends, and GDB is shutdown, we will always
> be back in the original directory, so a crash on teardown will be
> spotted (via the coredump).
> 
> And if GDB crashes during the inner block, then yes, the coredump will
> be in the "wrong" place, but we should be guaranteed to see a test
> failure.
> 
> Would something like this be acceptable?

Yes, I think that is sufficient in practice.  I'm happy with that.

Thanks,
Pedro Alves

> 
> My other idea is to have 'maint selftest' take an extra argument like:
> 
>   (gdb) maint selftest --temp-directory /path/to/directory
> 
> which would then be used by the individual tests when creating temporary
> files.
> 
> Thoughts?
> 
> Thanks,
> Andrew
>