QEMU does not express a dependency on perl-Test-Harness

[John Snow]

This is a minor thing; in Fedora you can install most of the developer dependencies by issuing something like `dnf builddep qemu-kvm` and this takes care of just about everything such that you can run ./configure and make.

For "make check" though, configure doesn't catch that you'll need perl-Test-Harness; so it fails halfway through the check routine, and you'll see this:

```
Can't locate TAP/Parser.pm in @INC (you may need to install the TAP::Parser module) (@INC contains: /usr/local/lib64/perl5 /usr/local/share/perl5 /usr/lib64/perl5/vendor_perl /usr/share/perl5/vendor_perl /usr/lib64/perl5 /usr/share/perl5) at ./scripts/tap-driver.pl line 30.
BEGIN failed--compilation aborted at ./scripts/tap-driver.pl line 30.
make: *** [/home/jhuston/src/qemu/tests/Makefile.include:905: check-unit] Error 2
```

I'm not sure how we should express this dependency; it shouldn't be a requirement for building, but it IS a dependency for testing. We probably ought not let users skip the qapi tests just because they don't have the perl requirement met.

(And, separately, the Fedora package should list this as a builddep, but that's not an issue for here.)

[Alex Bennée (ajbennee)]

Given we require python perhaps the simplest solution would be to re-write the tap-driver as a python script rather than adding another configure check?

[John Snow (jnsnow)]

On 9/13/19 4:33 AM, Alex Bennée wrote:
> Given we require python perhaps the simplest solution would be to re-
> write the tap-driver as a python script rather than adding another
> configure check?
>

Seems a shame to need to after Paolo *just* introduced this perl script
late last year in 9df43317b82; it looks well-written as far as perl goes.

I think in this case it's less work to just express the dependency.

[John Snow (jnsnow)]

On 9/13/19 11:06 AM, Paolo Bonzini wrote:
> On 13/09/19 16:56, John Snow wrote:
>>
>>
>> On 9/13/19 4:33 AM, Alex Bennée wrote:
>>> Given we require python perhaps the simplest solution would be to re-
>>> write the tap-driver as a python script rather than adding another
>>> configure check?
>>
>> Seems a shame to need to after Paolo *just* introduced this perl script
>> late last year in 9df43317b82; it looks well-written as far as perl goes.
>
> Also because I didn't write it most of it (rather, it comes from
> Automake). The new dependency was even documented in the release notes:
>
> Running the QEMU testsuite now requires the Perl Test::Harness module.
> Most Linux and BSD distributions however install it by default
> together with Perl.
>

Yeah, let's just add a warning(?) to the configure check that you'll be
unable to run `make check` if you're missing this dependency. Easier
than re-writing.

--js

[Thomas Huth (th-huth)]

The QEMU project is currently considering to move its bug tracking to
another system. For this we need to know which bugs are still valid
and which could be closed already. Thus we are setting older bugs to
"Incomplete" now.

If you still think this bug report here is valid, then please switch
the state back to "New" within the next 60 days, otherwise this report
will be marked as "Expired". Or please mark it as "Fix Released" if
the problem has been solved with a newer version of QEMU already.

Thank you and sorry for the inconvenience.

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

[Expired for QEMU because there has been no activity for 60 days.]