Re: [PATCH 1/1] t/test-lib: make `test_dir_is_empty` more robust

[Jonathan Nieder <jrnieder@gmail.com>]

Hi,

Junio C Hamano wrote:
> Jonathan Nieder <jrnieder@gmail.com> writes:

>> but $'' is too recent of a shell feature to count on (e.g., dash doesn't
>> support it).  See t/t3600-rm.sh for an example of a portable way to do
>
> Is that "too recent"?  I thought it was bashism, not even in POSIX,
> but I may be mistaken.

You're right.  I got a little ahead of myself: it's not part of POSIX
yet but is likely to be so once the details get ironed out:
http://austingroupbugs.net/view.php?id=249

> Quite honestly, our tests are still run inside a sort-of controlled
> environment, so if it _requires_ use of things we have avoided so
> far, like "ls -A" and "xargs -0", in order to be resistant to
> funnyly-named files like dot-LF-dot, I would say it is not worth
> worrying about them--instead we can simply refrain from using such a
> pathological name, can't we?

The "xargs -0" is a bit of a red herring.  That construct is
definitely not needed for the test it was used in.

For "ls -A", I agree with you that the benefit is not very high, so
the cost would have to be pretty low for this to be worth it.  But
given the lineage of "ls -A", I feel there's a chance that it's
widespread enough that it would meet that bar.

> "ls -A" may be in POSIX, but our attitude generally is to avoid
> saying things like "it is in POSIX so it's your platform's fault
> that it is not yet supported".  We instead say "even it may be in
> POSIX, in real life many people don't have it, so let's avoid it".
> And "xargs -0" I do not think is.

Indeed.

Thanks,
Jonathan