X-Git-Url: https://git.notmuchmail.org/git?a=blobdiff_plain;f=test%2FREADME;h=a81808b164f0cec0ec6c0010cb023fe77d7e098c;hb=f8253363206caeb90e1b82ed00c73708116a9aba;hp=11eaf18fa3fbd27c49251cf9832d87286077312b;hpb=25f9a42287a7a2ad58a1dff5ccfe75fe7e26d8db;p=notmuch

diff --git a/test/README b/test/README
index 11eaf18f..a81808b1 100644
--- a/test/README
+++ b/test/README
@@ -25,6 +25,7 @@ that you know if you break anything.
   - gdb(1)
   - gpg(1)
   - python(1)
+  - xapian-metadata(1)
 
 If your system lacks these tools or have older, non-upgradable versions
 of these, please (possibly compile and) install these to some other
@@ -136,6 +137,23 @@ detection of missing prerequisites. In the future we may treat tests
 unable to run because of missing prerequisites, but not explicitly
 skipped by the user, as failures.
 
+Testing installed notmuch
+-------------------------
+
+Systems integrators (e.g. Linux distros) may wish to test an installed
+version of notmuch.  This can be done be running
+
+     $ NOTMUCH_TEST_INSTALLED=1 ./test/notmuch-test
+
+In this scenario the test suite does not assume a built tree, and in
+particular cannot rely on the output of 'configure'. You may want to
+set certain feature environment variables ('NOTMUCH_HAVE_*') directly
+if you know those apply to your installed notmuch). Consider also
+setting TERM=dumb if the value of TERM cannot be used (e.g. in a
+chroot with missing terminfo). Note that having a built tree may cause
+surprising/broken results for NOTMUCH_TEST_INSTALLED, so consider
+cleaning first.
+
 Writing Tests
 -------------
 The test script is written as a shell script. It is to be named as