Re: [PATCH 3/4] selftests/nolibc: rename Makefile

[Willy Tarreau]

On Sat, Jun 21, 2025 at 10:34:38AM +0200, Thomas Weißschuh wrote:
> On 2025-06-21 06:14:21+0200, Willy Tarreau wrote:
> > Hi Thomas,
> > 
> > On Fri, Jun 20, 2025 at 11:39:32PM +0200, Thomas Weißschuh wrote:
> > > The nolibc tests are not real kselftests, they work differently and
> > > provide a different interface. Users trying to use them like real
> > > selftests may be confused and the tests are not executed by CI systems.
> > > 
> > > To make space for an integration with the kselftest framework, move the
> > > custom tests out of the way.
> > > The custom tests are still useful to keep as they provide functionality
> > > not provided by kselftests.
> > 
> > I'm wondering, what prevents us from merging the new rules into the
> > current makefile instead of renaming it, especially considering the
> > fact that we initially took care of not confiscating the "all" target ?
> 
> We'll have conflicts around CFLAGS, the nolibc-test target and probably
> other things.

OK I understand.

> It will also make everything harder to understand and may
> break unexpectedly in the future.
> 
> > I'm asking because: 
> > 
> >   $ make -f Makefile.nolibc help
> > 
> > is clearly less convenient and intuitive than:
> > 
> >   $ make help
> 
> Is your issue specifically with the help target?

Not just but that's an entry point. Admittedly it's not a big problem,
I was merely asking if there was a real reason for splitting them apart
or if it was just to keep the stuff clean.

> We should be able to show the help message from the main Makefile with a
> hint to the Makefile.nolibc.

I thought about it as well, we could have a help target in the main
makefile that just emits "Please run make -f Makefile.nolibc with the
following targets:", and then runs "make -f Makefile.nolibc help".

> Another, more general, possibility would be to move the special Makefile
> to tools/testing/nolibc/ and keep only the selftest parts in
> tools/testing/selftests/nolibc/.

I hadn't thought about this, but that could indeed make sense. Let's see
later how it goes and let's not add burden about this for now. Please just
keep your patch as-is.

Thanks,
Willy