Re: [RFA/mi-testsuite] XFAIL mi*-console.exp

Andrew Cagney
2002-04-04T21:49:55Z

> On Wed, Apr 03, 2002 at 11:27:13PM -0500, Andrew Cagney wrote:
>
>> >These tests are testing for a feature that exists either nowhere or just in
>> >simulators and some remote stubs: that the inferior's output goes through
>> >GDB and is properly encoded by the MI layer. Since support isn't there for
>> >many remote debugging stubs or for native, I think these two tests should
>> >be
>> >XFAIL'd. Does that make sense, Andrew? If so, OK to commit this?
>
>>
>> I believe GDB's rule for XFAIL is something that can't work (due to an
>> external constraint) rather than doesn't work (due to a lack of code).
>>
>> Hence it was marked as a known bug rather than a limitation.
>
>
> OK, so it isn't an XFAIL. I don't think FAIL is really appropriate
> either; tests which test a not-yet-implemented feature (and one that I
> think is a bad idea, for native targets, to be honest) don't add any
> information by failing. UNSUPPORTED perhaps? Or just not running the
> test in native setups, for now?
Er, actually, XFAIL might be closer to the truth than UNSUPPORTED.
Although neither indicate UNIMPLEMENTED.

Andrew

> Aside, fernando and I had a brief discussion about xfail vs unsupported and came up with the following concrete example.
>
> Attach/detach:
>
> FreeBSD has a bug in its detach, since at present it doesn't work but did in the past, and will again in the next release it will work, it gets marked as ``xfail'. Next release it will mysteriously ``xpass'' and can be adjusted accordingly.
>
> Cygwin, due to limitations in the underlying OS, simply wasn't able to support detach, it should be marked as ``unsupported''. (As a foot note, recent versions of the underlying OS, did fix this limitation).