RFC: Additional testsuite alternative

[Daniel Jacobowitz <drow at mvista dot com>]

OK, the files were on a different machine, so this wasn't a couple minutes
after I promised it this morning.  Can't win 'em all.

I very much admire the way GCC's testsuite works.  You don't have to write
code for new tests; you can just drop them in.  Binutils has a two-file
version (GCC's is all one-file, using the DejaGNU "dg" harness) that's
comparable.

GDB testing is more complicated, but I think that for a significant number
of tests we can get the same result.  Some more complex tests will still
want to be their own .exp files, of course.  Here's how what I've
implemented so far looks.

Source file two.cc:
===
struct OneStruct {
  int simple;
};
struct OneStruct StrOne;
const struct OneStruct *ConstStrOnePtr;

int FunctionWithPtrs (const struct OneStruct *one, const int *two)
{
  return 0;
}

int
main ()
{
  return 0;
}
===

Source file two.x:
===
#compile two.cc two.exe executable debug
#runto main
#test "ptype StrOne"
type = class OneStruct {
  public:
    int simple;
[synthetic OneStruct]}
#test "ptype ConstStrOnePtr"
type = const class OneStruct {
  public:
    int simple;
[synthetic OneStruct]} \*
===

Lines starting with "#[a-z]" are commands.  The ones we have so far (since
they were all I needed for the test I was writing at the time :) are:

#compile <source> <binfile> <type> <options>

Works just like a call to gdb_compile, but the source is relative to the
location of the .x file.

#runto <function>

Calls either runto or runto_main depending on the argument.

#test [-const] "command"

Sends "command" to GDB and watches for the response, which is a series of
lines not starting with #.  If -const is specified then consts (volatiles,
etc.) will be left alone; otherwise they are made optional iff the debug
format is stabs.  Later I'll refine it to "iff the debug format is stabs and
the compiler does not produce const type qualifiers in its stabs".

The string [synthetic ClassName] is special and expands to a regex (iff
stabs) that matches the synthesized constructors and assignment operator
that GCC emits when using stabs (simplisticly; it's not meant to be perfect,
just to reduce clutter in testing simple structures, and I haven't thought
of a way to properly prevent the synthesized methods from showing up.  I
think I just did, though, and if it works this construct will die.)


Obviously the syntax isn't complete.  It doesn't support comments yet but
that's easy.  It's not set in stone; I'd kind of like to use something other
than '#' so that I can use '#' for comments.  Maybe '%'?


The general intention is that this makes it easier to write tests, and
drastically easier to read them and figure out what the expected output is.

Thoughts?  Is this interesting to anyone else?

-- 
Daniel Jacobowitz
MontaVista Software                         Debian GNU/Linux Developer