Re: [PATCH v3/GSoC 4/5] test-lib.sh: unset all environment variables defined in xdg base dir spec[1]

[Jeff King <peff@peff.net>]

On Wed, Mar 23, 2016 at 06:13:24PM +0800, Hui Yiqun wrote:

> Otherwise, on environments where these variables and set, an assignment
> to one of these variables will cause the variable being implicitly exported.

Yes, that's one problem, though I think the more general problem is
simply that they pollute the test environment (so git might actually be
touching your _real_ credential-cache socket, and not a fake test one).

I'd probably write:

  We try to clean the test environment of variables that may affect the
  outcome, so that the tests always start from a known state. We already
  clean XDG_CONFIG_HOME, but now that we support XDG_RUNTIME_DIR, we
  must clean that, too. While we're at it, let's simply cover all
  variables mentioned in the xdg spec[1] to future-proof and to cover
  any places where they might unexpectedly have an impact.

Feel free to use or adapt that as you see fit.

> +# Unset all environment variables defined in xdg base dir spec[1]
> +# to make sure that the test are running with a known state.
> +#
> +# [1] https://specifications.freedesktop.org/basedir-spec
> +#     /basedir-spec-latest.html
> +unset XDG_DATA_HOME
>  unset XDG_CONFIG_HOME
> +unset XDG_DATA_DIRS
> +unset XDG_CONFIG_DIRS
> +unset XDG_CACHE_HOME
> +unset XDG_RUNTIME_DIR

Thanks for being thorough here. This is much nicer than just adding
XDG_RUNTIME_DIR.

-Peff