While working on https://rt.cpan.org/Ticket/Display.html?id=132669, I had occasion to fork the Tk-Clock repository on github.com, clone it locally and start to explore it in my customary manner, i.e., 'perl Makefile.PL && make && make test'.
The test suite failed as follows:
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PERL_DL_NONLAZY=1 "/home/jkeenan/perl5/perlbrew/perls/perl-5.30.0/bin/perl" "-MExtUtils::Command::MM" "-MTest::Harness" "-e" "undef *Test::Harness::Switches; test_harness(0, 'blib/lib', 'blib/arch')" t/*.t
t/00_pod.t ....... ok
t/01_pod.t ....... ok
t/10_base.t ...... ok
t/20_resize.t .... ok
t/30_dual.t ...... ok
t/40_backdrop.t .. ok
All tests successful.
Files=6, Tests=75, 118 wallclock secs ( 0.04 usr 0.01 sys + 1.26 cusr 0.15 csys = 1.46 CPU)
Result: PASS
make[1]: Entering directory '/home/jkeenan/gitwork/zzzothers/Tk-Clock'
PERL_DL_NONLAZY=1 "/home/jkeenan/perl5/perlbrew/perls/perl-5.30.0/bin/perl" "-MExtUtils::Command::MM" "-MTest::Harness" "-e" "undef *Test::Harness::Switches; test_harness(0, 'blib/lib', 'blib/arch')" xt/*.t
xt/00_perlversion.t .. ok
xt/02_pod.t .......... skipped: Test::Pod::Links required for testing POD Links
xt/10_perm.t ......... Can't locate Test/PAUSE/Permissions.pm in @INC (you may need to install the Test::PAUSE::Permissions module) (@INC contains: /home/jkeenan/gitwork/zzzothers/Tk-Clock/blib/lib /home/jkeenan/gitwork/zzzothers/Tk-Clock/blib/arch /home/jkeenan/perl5/perlbrew/perls/perl-5.30.0/lib/site_perl/5.30.0/x86_64-linux /home/jkeenan/perl5/perlbrew/perls/perl-5.30.0/lib/site_perl/5.30.0 /home/jkeenan/perl5/perlbrew/perls/perl-5.30.0/lib/5.30.0/x86_64-linux /home/jkeenan/perl5/perlbrew/perls/perl-5.30.0/lib/5.30.0 .) at xt/10_perm.t line 1.
BEGIN failed--compilation aborted at xt/10_perm.t line 1.
xt/10_perm.t ......... Dubious, test returned 2 (wstat 512, 0x200)
No subtests run
Test Summary Report
-------------------
xt/10_perm.t (Wstat: 512 Tests: 0 Failed: 0)
Non-zero exit status: 2
Parse errors: No plan found in TAP output
Files=3, Tests=11, 3 wallclock secs ( 0.02 usr 0.01 sys + 1.68 cusr 0.05 csys = 1.76 CPU)
Result: FAIL
Failed 1/3 test programs. 0/11 subtests failed.
Makefile:861: recipe for target 'test_dynamic' failed
make[1]: *** [test_dynamic] Error 2
make[1]: Leaving directory '/home/jkeenan/gitwork/zzzothers/Tk-Clock'
Makefile:949: recipe for target 'test' failed
make: [test] Error 2 (ignored)
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So 'make test' includes the (presumably) author tests in xt/ as well as the code tests proper in t/. The only test failure is in an xt/ test for a prerequisite failure that was not flagged by 'perl Makefile.PL'.
This is not a good reason for this distribution's test suite to be graded FAIL. My own preference would be to *not* run author tests under 'make test' unless some envvar like PERL_AUTHOR_ONLY_TESTING was set. But in any case, xt/10_perm.t should exit more gracefully in the absence of Test::PAUSE::Permissions (much in the way that xt/02_pod.t exits gracefully in the absence of a prerequisite).
Thank you very much.
Jim Keenan
RT for rt.cpan.org