[proposal/testsuite] require build == host

[mec dot gnu at mindspring dot com (Michael Chastain)]

I'm working on a test script for the 'edit' command.  In order to test
the 'edit' command, the test script has to manage files on the host
machine (where gdb is running), not the build machine (where dejagnu is
running).

A recapitulation:

  build    runs dejagnu and the *.exp scripts
  host     runs gcc, as, ld, and gdb
  target   runs the test program such as "callfuncs" or "structs2"

I started looking at how other gdb test scripts work in a configuration
where build and host are different machines, and, well, they don't.
There are about a dozen scripts that compile test files with header
files, and except for list.exp, none of them download their *.h files to
the host machine.  gcore.exp manipulates files that gdb creates on the
host machine.  It needs to "remote upload" the files that gdb creates
back to the build machine, but it doesn't.  And so on.

Of course the test suite supports a target machine which is separate
from the build/host machine.  That is not at issue.

I don't think anyone actually uses a configuration with separate build
and host.  So I propose this patch to document that the gdb test suite
requires that build and host be the same machine.

I'll give this proposal a week for discussion.  I'm hoping that the
discussion goes "you're right, build-cross-host is silly and
unnecessary, just drop it already", but someone may have a good reason
for wanting it.

Testing: I built gdbint.texinfo with makeinfo 4.7 to check the syntax.
But that's not really important yet.  This is about the proposal,
not about the specific patch.

Comments?

Michael C

2004-07-24  Michael Chastain  <mec.gnu@mindspring.com>

	* gdbint.texinfo (Testsuite): Document that build and host
	must be the same machine.

Index: gdbint.texinfo
===================================================================
RCS file: /cvs/src/src/gdb/doc/gdbint.texinfo,v
retrieving revision 1.214
diff -c -3 -p -r1.214 gdbint.texinfo
*** gdbint.texinfo	1 Jul 2004 20:25:54 -0000	1.214
--- gdbint.texinfo	25 Jul 2004 00:01:08 -0000
*************** difficult to test, such as code that han
*** 6315,6320 ****
--- 6315,6325 ----
  in particular versions of compilers, and it's OK not to try to write
  tests for all of those.
  
+ DejaGNU supports separate build, host, and target machines.  However,
+ the @value{GDBN} testsuite requires that the host machine be the
+ same as the build machine.  This requirement simplifies the writing
+ of test files.
+ 
  @section Testsuite Organization
  
  @cindex test suite organization