Re: [PATCH] tests: remove the GETTEXT_POISON compile-time option to test i18n marking

[Michael J Gruber <git@grubix.eu>]

[Turns out I still can't operate gmail's web interface. Sorry for the dupe.]

2017-04-24 13:04 GMT+02:00 Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason <avarab@gmail.com>:
> Remove the GETTEXT_POISON=YesPlease compile-time which turns all of
> git's LC_*=C output into strings like "# GETTEXT POISON #" instead of
> gettext(msgid).
>
> See commit bb946bba76 ("i18n: add GETTEXT_POISON to simulate
> unfriendly translator", 2011-02-22) for what this was originally
> intended for.
>
> This facility has been broken for quite a while and has been subjected
> to frequent bitrot. The initial idea behind it back when it was added
> in 2011 was to prevent the accidental translation of plumbing
> messages.
>
> This isn't a big concern anymore as git isn't mass-adding i18n
> messages for a newly developed i18n facility as it was back then,
> maintaining this facility incurs a burden, and in actuality this has
> often been broken long enough for potential plumbing messages to be
> translated & make their way into major releases anyway.
>
> Most of this patch consists of search/replacing the test suite for:
>
>     test_i18ngrep ! -> ! grep
>     test_i18ngrep   -> grep
>     test_i18ncmp    -> test_cmp
>
> 1. <AANLkTi=5MrU-JyeQ3UVNbVwzn-8FbstUXafgcQaLWXDB@mail.gmail.com>
>    (https://public-inbox.org/git/AANLkTi=5MrU-JyeQ3UVNbVwzn-8FbstUXafgcQaLWXDB@mail.gmail.com/)
>
> Signed-off-by: Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason <avarab@gmail.com>
> ---
>
> On Mon, Apr 24, 2017 at 3:18 AM, Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com> wrote:
>> Michael J Gruber <git@grubix.eu> writes:
>>
>>> Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason venit, vidit, dixit 20.04.2017 23:58:
>>>> As a refresh of everyone's memory (because mine needed it). This is a
>>>> feature I added back in 2011 when the i18n support was initially
>>>> added.
>>>>
>>>> There was concern at the time that we would inadvertently mark
>>>> plumbing messages for translation, particularly something in a shared
>>>> code path, and this was a way to hopefully smoke out those issues with
>>>> the test suite.
>>>>
>>>> However compiling with it breaks a couple of dozen tests, I stopped
>>>> digging when I saw some broke back in 2014.
>>>>
>>>> What should be done about this? I think if we're going to keep them
>>>> they need to be run regularly by something like Travis (Lars CC'd),
>>>> however empirical evidence suggests that not running them is just fine
>>>> too, so should we just remove support for this test mode?
>>>>
>>>> I don't care, but I can come up with the patch either way, but would
>>>> only be motivated to write the one-time fix for it if some CI system
>>>> is actually running them regularly, otherwise they'll just be subject
>>>> to bitrotting again.
>>>
>>> I use that switch when I change something that involves l10n, but
>>> usually I run specific tests only. To be honest: I have to make sure not
>>> to get confused by (nor forget one of) the build flag GETTEXT_POISON and
>>> the environment variable GIT_GETTEXT_POISON. I'm not sure I always
>>> tested what I meant to test...
>>
>> To be quite honest, I have always felt that we are just as likely
>> inadvertently use test_i18ncmp when we should use test_cmp (and vice
>> versa) as we would mark plumbing messages with _() by mistake with
>> this approach, and even with constant monitoring by something like
>> Travis, GETTEXT_POISON may be able to catch mistakes only some of
>> the time (i.e. when we do not make mistakes in writing our tests).
>> Without constant monitoring, I agree that the mechanism does not
>> work well to catch our mistakes.
>
> Here's an alternate patch to just remove it entirely. I think we
> should apply this instead, the only reason I sent the patch to fix it
> up was because of Michael's comment that he was occasionally using it.

Yes, I think test_i18ngrep and test_i18ncmp gave the impression that
they are i18n-aware grep and cmp, whereas in fact they turned off
these tese test lines completely.
Combined with the fact that GETTEXT_POSON builds turned on
GIT_GETTEXT_POISON, this sounds somewhat dangerous - we test more
aspects of plumbing commands but turn off (some) tests for porcelain.

I'm still wondering wether we couldn't generate a test locale
automatically by mangling the english strings (but preserving format
specifiers). That way, tests that test porcelain output could require
LANG=C while others could run in the mangled locale. (tt_TT is taken,
though ;) )

Michael