X-Git-Url: https://git.notmuchmail.org/git?p=notmuch;a=blobdiff_plain;f=test%2FREADME;h=e54e36b795e852e536dab96256420edbfee84368;hp=79a9b1b2f9a15aba7466e4e5b1b308663dd1296c;hb=b8f4e7da3d61733fb47111b162ccabb967a3661e;hpb=88e6a2995a0108f6ceb94924bd7e6c3623c43dec

diff --git a/test/README b/test/README
index 79a9b1b2..e54e36b7 100644
--- a/test/README
+++ b/test/README
@@ -64,6 +64,14 @@ The following command-line options are available when running tests:
 	Pointing this argument at a tmpfs filesystem can improve the
 	speed of the test suite for some users.
 
+Certain tests require precomputed databases to complete. You can fetch these
+databases with
+
+	make download-test-databases
+
+If you do not download the test databases, the relevant tests will be
+skipped.
+
 When invoking the test suite via "make test" any of the above options
 can be specified as follows:
 
@@ -76,6 +84,11 @@ the tests in one of the following ways.
 	TEST_EMACS=my-special-emacs TEST_EMACSCLIENT=my-emacsclient ./emacs
 	make test TEST_EMACS=my-special-emacs TEST_EMACSCLIENT=my-emacsclient
 
+Some tests may require a c compiler. You can choose the name and flags similarly
+to with emacs, e.g.
+
+     make test TEST_CC=gcc TEST_CFLAGS="-g -O2"
+
 Quiet Execution
 ---------------
 
@@ -104,6 +117,13 @@ Note that some tests in the existing test suite rely on previous test
 items, so you cannot arbitrarily skip any test and expect the
 remaining tests to be unaffected.
 
+Currently we do not consider skipped tests as build failures. For
+maximum robustness, when setting up automated build processes, you
+should explicitely skip tests, rather than relying on notmuch's
+detection of missing prerequisites. In the future we may treat tests
+unable to run because of missing prerequisites, but not explicitely
+skipped by the user, as failures.
+
 Writing Tests
 -------------
 The test script is written as a shell script.  It should start with
@@ -125,7 +145,7 @@ Source 'test-lib.sh'
 After assigning test_description, the test script should source
 test-lib.sh like this:
 
-	. ./test-lib.sh
+	. ./test-lib.sh || exit 1
 
 This test harness library does the following things: