[Pkg-octave-devel] Running Octave tests under xvfb

[rafael@debian.org (Rafael Laboissière)]

* Rafael Laboissi?re <rafael at debian.org> [2017-10-17 22:07]:

> * Antonio Terceiro <terceiro at debian.org> [2017-10-17 14:54]:
>>
>> Isn't this something that could be handled in octave-autopkgtest 
>> instead? /usr/share/octave-pkg-dev/check-pkg is a shell script, it 
>> could source e.g. debian/tests/octave-autopkgtest.conf or 
>> debian/octave-autopkgtest.conf if it exists, and do different things 
>> based on the values of some documented environment variables.
>>
>> One of those variables would mean "Run the tests under xvfb". This 
>> has the advantage of also working when check-pkg is executed during 
>> the build ...
>>
>> Also this way you only use xvfb for the packages that really need 
>> it, cutting down in test dependencies, download/install time, etc.
>
> This is a sensible suggestion.  I will think about it.

I have given a though on your suggestion.  Imagine that a given 
package tells the check-pkg script (through a config file as you 
suggested) that the tests will need xvfb.  How can that work on 
ci.debian.org, if xvfb is not declared as a dependency for running the 
unit tests?

I am probably missing something here.

Best,

Rafael