Re: [PATCH] gnu: Add ghc-doctest.

[Paul van der Walt <paul@denknerd.org>]

On 2015-10-22 at 05:32, quoth ericbavier@openmailbox.org:
> Testing for and with doctest is tricky.  I'm not sure your comment about
> missing test frameworks is accurate; it looks, from what I can tell, like all
> the necessary inputs are present.
>
> I believe the issue is that tests that call the 'doctest' function may not
> (probably do not) include the "-package-db" argument in the parameter list
> given, but since haskell-build-system relies on the fact that cabal passes
> that argument to GHC, it is essential that that information get there somehow.
> I would say it's a deficiency of most package's build systems that they do not
> take this situation into account.

I see, i finally understand the issue.  That sounds exactly right,
indeed.

> So, either the tests files can be patched to include "-package-db" in the GHC
> arguments given to the 'doctest' function, or GHC_PACKAGE_PATH can be defined
> appropriately before the 'check' phase (at that point in the build cabal will
> not complain, as it would if GHC_PACKAGE_PATH were defined during the
> 'configure' phase).

I think this is unnecessarily complex, especially given the upcoming
native-search-path patch.

> It looks to me like tests are disabled for all packages that use doctest in
> this patch series:
>
> ghc-trifecta
> ghc-lens
> ghc-wai-logger
> ghc-parsers
> ghc-semigroupoids
> ghc-comonad
> ghc-distributive
> ghc-http-types
> ghc-unix-time
> ghc-iproute
>
> I would suggest that tests for these packages simply be disabled (and the
> corresponding test-only inputs be removed) for the time being.  The pending
> GHC native-search-path patches should trivially resolve this issue, at which
> time tests for these packages can be revisited.

I have indeed simply removed the test-only inputs on these packages, and
fixed the comments to correspond to the real problem.

Thanks,
p.