[Reproducible-builds] Bug#801692: libhtml-formatexternal-perl: netrik test failures with some TERM settings

[Niko Tyni]

Package: libhtml-formatexternal-perl
Version: 26-1
Severity: normal
User: reproducible-builds at lists.alioth.debian.org
Usertags: ftbfs
X-Debbugs-Cc: reproducible-builds at lists.alioth.debian.org

As a followup to #788639, this package is failing to build on the
reproducible.d.n CI system due to issues with the TERM environment
variable.

 https://reproducible.debian.net/rb-pkg/unstable/amd64/libhtml-formatexternal-perl.html

  t/FormatExternal.t (Wstat: 2560 Tests: 284 Failed: 10)
    Failed tests:  172-173, 175-176, 197-202

There's stderr output like

  # HTML::FormatText::Netrik program_full_version $VAR1 = '/usr/bin/netrik: unrecognized option \'--version\'
  # \'unknown\': I need something more specific.
  # ';
  # HTML::FormatText::Netrik program_version $VAR1 = '(not reported)';
  'unknown': I need something more specific.

which gives a hint: the 'I need something more specific' part comes
from ncurses. I can reproduce this locally by setting TERM=unknown.

I'm somewhat inclined to blame the jenkins setup, but given we've already
had trouble with the netrik tests, I suppose inserting a
 local $ENV{TERM} = 'dumb';
in the test suite as discussed in [rt.cpan.org #105221] would be good
enough to solve this. It would probably also make it possible to drop
the build dependency on ncurses-term.
-- 
Niko Tyni   ntyni at debian.org