Re: bin/51667

[Ryota Ozaki <ozaki-r%netbsd.org@localhost>]

The following reply was made to PR bin/51667; it has been noted by GNATS.

From: Ryota Ozaki <ozaki-r%netbsd.org@localhost>
To: "gnats-bugs%NetBSD.org@localhost" <gnats-bugs%netbsd.org@localhost>
Cc: gnats-admin%netbsd.org@localhost, netbsd-bugs%netbsd.org@localhost
Subject: Re: bin/51667
Date: Tue, 10 Apr 2018 08:43:05 +0000

 On Sun, Apr 8, 2018 at 5:35 AM Robert Elz <kre%munnari.oz.au@localhost> wrote:
 
 > The following reply was made to PR bin/51667; it has been noted by GNATS.
 
 > From: Robert Elz <kre%munnari.OZ.AU@localhost>
 > To: gnats-bugs%netbsd.org@localhost
 > Cc:
 > Subject: Re: bin/51667
 > Date: Sun, 08 Apr 2018 03:31:33 +0700
 
 >   This is almost certainly because atf_check is just a shell function that
 >   calls atf_fail (if the checks fail), and atf_fail is just another shell
 function
 >   which (more or less) just does exit 1.
 
 >   ie: if the test is to fail, the shell running it exits with a "failed"
 status.
 
 >   Unfortunately, that is the shell running atf_fail (or atf_check) - some
 >   child sub-shell exiting with a failure status will only cause the correct
 >   behaviour for the test if the actual shell running the test also exits.
 
 >   In a pipeline, with /bin/sh (as allowed by posix, as it was the way the
 >   original Bourne sh did things) all the processes are run in a sub-shell
 >   (this is the same reason that
 
 >          some_command | while whatever
 >                  do
 >                          var=foo
 >                  done
 
 >   neve results in var in the parent shell being set - the assignment
 happens
 >   in the sub-shell.
 
 >   That is, the sub-shell exits 1, causing a 1 exit status from the pipeline
 >   to be 1, but beyond that, the function just keeps on running.
 
 >   The same effect would be observed if one wanted to try
 
 >          (atf-check -s exit:0 false)
 
 >   false exits with status 1, the "exit:0" test fails, so the test containg
 this
 >   check should fail, but it will not, because only the sub-shell exited,
 not
 >   the one running the test.
 
 >   I don't think there is anything that can be done about this, aside from
 >   just documenting it perhaps.   The alternative would be a major
 >   re-write of ATF.
 
 >   I would suggest closing this PR as "sh*t happens, can't be avoided"
 
 Thank you for the explanation. I got it.
 
 I'm ok to close this PR with "won't fix" because there is a workaround.
 
    ozaki-r