Re: MI failures related to string printing

[Vladimir Prus <ghost at cs dot msu dot su>]

Nick Roberts wrote:

>  > > If your just talking about the one FAIL in mi-var-child.exp, why not
>  > > just
>  > > mark it as an XFAIL?  I see that the other XFAIL actually passes (for
>  > > me, at least).
> 
> I mean when "FIXME" is removed from the output string.
> 
>  > Why should it be an XFAIL? The test was working fine before your
>  > change, and I see no reason why the test cannot be modified to always
>  > pass.
> 
> The aim of the testsuite is to test GDB and not just get 100% pass rate
> (except
> when we're on performance related pay!).  The test presumably has value on
> systems where it passes.  

Don't you think that a test that randomly fails depending on compiler version
and the address at which the binary happens to load is completely useless.
If I see it fail, how do I know if it signifies a bug in my (new) code, or not?

> I'm sure it can be modified to always pass but 
> that's
> only worthwhile if it remains a meaningful test.  I don't know how to
> devise such a test because it doesn't fail for me now.

You just need to make sure the testcase never uses char* values that point
to a single char, by making all single-char value char arrays of size 2
where the second element is zero, or by any other approach.

- Volodya