Bug#875914: autopkgtest: support Conflicts: in debian/tests/control

[Daniel Kahn Gillmor]

On Tue 2018-03-20 22:42:42 +0100, Paul Gevers wrote:
> Control: tags -1 moreinfo
>
> Hi Daniel,
>
> On Fri, 15 Sep 2017 17:16:15 -0400 Daniel Kahn Gillmor
> <dkg at fifthhorseman.net> wrote:
>> It would be nice if we could have Conflicts: in any stanza in
>> debian/tests/control, to indicate that if a given package is installed,
>> this test should not be considered a candidate to run.
>
> If I am correct, most backends already start from a minimal environment
> by default and only add the required packages. What use case do you have
> in mind where autopkgtest give you the wrong set?

afaict, the autopkgtest spec doesn't say that all
implementations/backends will start from a minimal environment.  And
some users want to run autopkgtest locally in some schroot that might
have other packages already installed.

furthermore, there are some "minimal environments" (e.g. "standard
install") which contain packages that might be conflict with some
obscure tests (e.g. a network management daemon with a normal use case
that needs testing that doesn't work when ifupdown is present).

does this help explain why an explicit conflicts would be useful in
avoiding false negatives?

     --dkg
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