When `chainlint.pl` detects problems in a test definition, it emits the
test definition with "?!FOO?!" annotations highlighting the problems it
discovered. For instance, given this problematic test:
test_expect_success 'discombobulate frobnitz' '
git frob babble &&
(echo balderdash; echo gnabgib) >expect &&
for i in three two one
do
git nitfol $i
done >actual
test_cmp expect actual
'
chainlint.pl will output:
# chainlint: t1234-confusing.sh
# chainlint: discombobulate frobnitz
git frob babble &&
(echo balderdash ; ?!AMP?! echo gnabgib) >expect &&
for i in three two one
do
git nitfol $i ?!LOOP?!
done >actual ?!AMP?!
test_cmp expect actual
in which it may be difficult to spot the "?!FOO?!" annotations. The
problem is compounded when multiple tests, possibly in multiple
scripts, fail "linting", in which case it may be difficult to spot the
"# chainlint:" lines which delimit one problematic test from another.
To ameliorate this potential problem, colorize the "?!FOO?!" annotations
in order to quickly draw the test author's attention to the problem
spots, and colorize the "# chainlint:" lines to help the author identify
the name of each script and each problematic test.
Colorization is disabled automatically if output is not directed to a
terminal or if NO_COLOR environment variable is set. The implementation
is specific to Unix (it employs `tput` if available) but works equally
well in the Git for Windows development environment which emulates Unix
sufficiently.
Signed-off-by: Eric Sunshine <sunshine@sunshineco.com>
Signed-off-by: Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>
The use of `|| return` (or `|| exit`) to signal failure within a loop
isn't effective when the loop is upstream of a pipe since the pipe
swallows all upstream exit codes and returns only the exit code of the
final command in the pipeline.
To work around this limitation, tests may adopt an alternative strategy
of signaling failure by emitting text which would never be emitted in
the non-failing case. For instance:
while condition
do
command1 &&
command2 ||
echo "impossible text"
done |
sort >actual &&
Such usage indicates deliberate thought about failure cases by the test
author, thus flagging them as missing `|| return` (or `|| exit`) is not
helpful. Therefore, take this case into consideration when checking for
explicit loop termination.
Signed-off-by: Eric Sunshine <sunshine@sunshineco.com>
Signed-off-by: Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>
Shell `for` and `while` loops do not terminate automatically just
because a command fails within the loop body. Instead, the loop
continues to iterate and eventually returns the exit status of the final
command of the final iteration, which may not be the command which
failed, thus it is possible for failures to go undetected. Consequently,
it is important for test authors to explicitly handle failure within the
loop body by terminating the loop manually upon failure. This can be
done by returning a non-zero exit code from within the loop body
(i.e. `|| return 1`) or exiting (i.e. `|| exit 1`) if the loop is within
a subshell, or by manually checking `$?` and taking some appropriate
action. Therefore, add logic to detect and complain about loops which
lack explicit `return` or `exit`, or `$?` check.
Signed-off-by: Eric Sunshine <sunshine@sunshineco.com>
Signed-off-by: Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>
There are quite a few tests which print an error messages and then
explicitly signal failure with `false`, `return 1`, or `exit 1` as the
final command in an `if` branch. In these cases, the tests don't bother
maintaining the &&-chain between `echo` and the explicit "test failed"
indicator. Since such constructs are manually signaling failure, their
&&-chain breakage is legitimate and safe -- both for the command
immediately preceding `false`, `return`, or `exit`, as well as for all
preceding commands in the `if` branch. Therefore, stop flagging &&-chain
breakage in these sorts of cases.
Signed-off-by: Eric Sunshine <sunshine@sunshineco.com>
Signed-off-by: Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>
There are cases in which tests capture and check a command's exit code
explicitly without employing test_expect_code(). They do so by
intentionally breaking the &&-chain since it would be impossible to
capture "$?" in the failing case if the `status=$?` assignment was part
of the &&-chain. Since such constructs are manually checking the exit
code, their &&-chain breakage is legitimate and safe, thus should not be
flagged. Therefore, stop flagging &&-chain breakage in such cases.
Signed-off-by: Eric Sunshine <sunshine@sunshineco.com>
Signed-off-by: Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>
The exit status of the `&` asynchronous operator which starts a command
in the background is unconditionally zero, and the few places in the
test scripts which launch commands asynchronously are not interested in
the exit status of the `&` operator (though they often capture the
background command's PID). As such, there is little value in complaining
about broken &&-chain for a command launched in the background, and
doing so would only make busy-work for test authors. Therefore, take
this special case into account when checking for &&-chain breakage.
Signed-off-by: Eric Sunshine <sunshine@sunshineco.com>
Signed-off-by: Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>
In order to check for &&-chain breakage, each time TestParser encounters
a new command, it checks whether the previous command ends with `&&`,
and -- with a couple exceptions -- signals breakage if it does not. The
first exception is that a command may validly end with `||`, which is
commonly employed as `command || return 1` at the very end of a loop
body to terminate the loop early. The second is that piping one
command's output with `|` to another command does not constitute a
&&-chain break (the exit status of the pipe is the exit status of the
final command in the pipe).
However, it turns out that there are a few additional cases found in the
wild in which it is likely safe for `&&` to be missing even when other
commands follow. For instance:
while {condition-1}
do
test {condition-2} || return 1 # or `exit 1` within a subshell
more-commands
done
while {condition-1}
do
test {condition-2} || continue
more-commands
done
Such cases indicate deliberate thought about failure modes by the test
author, thus flagging them as breaking the &&-chain is not helpful.
Therefore, take these special cases into consideration when checking for
&&-chain breakage.
Signed-off-by: Eric Sunshine <sunshine@sunshineco.com>
Signed-off-by: Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>
Although chainlint.pl has undergone a good deal of optimization during
its development -- increasing in speed significantly -- parsing and
validating 1050+ scripts and 16500+ tests via Perl is not exactly
instantaneous. However, perceived performance can be improved by taking
advantage of the fact that there is no interdependence between test
scripts or test definitions, thus parsing and validating can be done in
parallel. The number of available cores is determined automatically but
can be overridden via the --jobs option.
Signed-off-by: Eric Sunshine <sunshine@sunshineco.com>
Signed-off-by: Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>
Finish fleshing out chainlint.pl by adding ScriptParser, a parser which
scans shell scripts for tests defined by test_expect_success() and
test_expect_failure(), plucks the test body from each definition, and
passes it to TestParser for validation. It recognizes test definitions
not only at the top-level of test scripts but also tests synthesized
within compound commands such as loops and function.
Signed-off-by: Eric Sunshine <sunshine@sunshineco.com>
Signed-off-by: Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>
Continue fleshing out chainlint.pl by adding TestParser, a parser with
special knowledge about how Git tests should be written; for instance,
it knows that commands within a test body should be chained together
with `&&`. An upcoming parser which plucks test definitions from test
scripts will invoke TestParser for each test body it encounters.
Signed-off-by: Eric Sunshine <sunshine@sunshineco.com>
Signed-off-by: Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>
Continue fleshing out chainlint.pl by adding a general purpose recursive
descent parser for the POSIX shell command language. Although never
invoked directly, upcoming parser subclasses will extend its
functionality for specific purposes, such as plucking test definitions
from input scripts and applying domain-specific knowledge to perform
test validation.
Signed-off-by: Eric Sunshine <sunshine@sunshineco.com>
Signed-off-by: Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>
Begin fleshing out chainlint.pl by adding a lexical analyzer for the
POSIX shell command language. The sole entry point Lexer::scan_token()
returns the next token from the input. It will be called by the upcoming
shell language parser.
Signed-off-by: Eric Sunshine <sunshine@sunshineco.com>
Signed-off-by: Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>
Although chainlint.sed usefully identifies broken &&-chains in tests, it
has several shortcomings which include:
* only detects &&-chain breakage in subshells (one-level deep)
* does not check for broken top-level &&-chains; that task is left to
the "magic exit code 117" checker built into test-lib.sh, however,
that detection does not extend to `{...}` blocks, `$(...)`
expressions, or compound statements such as `if...fi`,
`while...done`, `case...esac`
* uses heuristics, which makes it (potentially) fallible and difficult
to tweak to handle additional real-world cases
* written in `sed` and employs advanced `sed` operators which are
probably not well-known to many programmers, thus the pool of people
who can maintain it is likely small
* manually simulates recursion into subshells which makes it much more
difficult to reason about than, say, a traditional top-down parser
* checks each test as the test is run, which can get expensive for
tests which are run repeatedly by functions or loops since their
bodies will be checked over and over (tens or hundreds of times)
unnecessarily
To address these shortcomings, begin implementing a more functional and
precise test linter which understands shell syntax and semantics rather
than employing heuristics, thus is able to recognize structural problems
with tests beyond broken &&-chains.
The new linter is written in Perl, thus should be more accessible to a
wider audience, and is structured as a traditional top-down parser which
makes it much easier to reason about, and allows it to inspect compound
statements within test bodies to any depth.
Furthermore, it can check all test definitions in the entire project in
a single invocation rather than having to be invoked once per test, and
each test definition is checked only once no matter how many times the
test is actually run.
At this stage, the new linter is just a skeleton containing boilerplate
which handles command-line options, collects and reports statistics, and
feeds its arguments -- paths of test scripts -- to a (presently)
do-nothing script parser for validation. Subsequent changes will flesh
out the functionality.
Signed-off-by: Eric Sunshine <sunshine@sunshineco.com>
Signed-off-by: Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>
