[Debian-med-packaging] Bug#986410: autopkg tests don't run with the same dependencies as during the build

[Étienne Mollier]

Hi Matthias,

Matthias Klose, on 2021-04-05:
> On 4/5/21 3:30 PM, Andreas Tille wrote:
> > On Mon, Apr 05, 2021 at 02:46:41PM +0200, Matthias Klose wrote:
> >> The autopkg tests don't run with the same dependencies as during the build. Just
> >> noticed because the python3-renderpm dependency seems to be necessary with the
> >> reportlab package from experimental.
> >>
> >> But in general, please run the autopkg tests with the same packages as done
> >> during the build.
> > 
> > Could you please be more verbose.  The Build-Depends and Depends string
> > do not do any specific version specification.  Python3-reportlab was
> > added to Depends since it is really needed while python3-renderpm is
> > fine as "Suggests".  Which change would you recommend to solve that bug?
> 
> please re-read. This is not about package dependencies or suggestions. All the
> <!nocheck> build dependencies should be added as autopkg test dependencies to
> test the same stuff you test during the build, unless there's a specific reason
> not to do so.

One of the uses we have of autopkgtest, among other things, is
to check that there are no missing dependencies in the packages;
so I think that is one reason why the <!nocheck> build
dependencies are missing.  In biopython context, the package
might have different behavior, depending on available tools on
the machine.  So I agree it makes good sense to have testings
with different combinations of packages installed on the target
system.  I actually implemented a second test, in addition to
the existing one, which includes all the test check
dependencies, and which should make it in an upcoming update,
after bullseye release.

The only concern I have is the maintainability of a full_suite
test, since there are no needs-build-deps restrictions, and I
don't really expect it would happen, since deprecation of
needs-recommends (IIUC, it caused problems of reproducibility of
issues in autopkgtests).  However, it might also highlight newer
missing tools when proceeding to upgrades, so this might be a
non-problem.  Any ways, this package has a lot of reverse
dependencies, so we might be better off having too many tests
than not enough.

Have a nice day,  :)
-- 
Étienne Mollier <emollier at emlwks999.eu>
Fingerprint:  8f91 b227 c7d6 f2b1 948c  8236 793c f67e 8f0d 11da
Sent from /dev/pts/2, please excuse my verbosity.
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