remotetcp_chert

[Olly Betts]

On Thu, Dec 08, 2016 at 10:08:40PM +0000, Eric Lindblad wrote:
> Dear Olly Betts,
> 
> same 32 bit
> 
> compiler version
> hardware
> OS
> OS version
> 
> as here (where remotetcp_chert passed and skipped 3)
> 
> xapian-core-1.2.21.tar.xz
> 
> http://nurmi-labs.blogspot.com/2015/10/xapian.html

That's over a year old - are you really running the exact same
versions now as then?

> ./apitest backend remoteprog_brass: All 225 tests passed, 3 skipped.
> ./apitest backend remotetcp_brass: All 225 tests passed, 3 skipped.
> ./apitest backend remoteprog_chert: All 225 tests passed, 3 skipped.
> ./apitest backend remotetcp_chert: All 225 tests passed, 3 skipped.
> ./apitest backend remoteprog_flint: All 219 tests passed, 2 skipped.
> ./apitest backend remotetcp_flint: All 219 tests passed, 2 skipped.

Skipped tests are fine - they just indicate things like a testcase isn't
currently able to be run for a particular backend, or something needed to
run the test isn't present.  Only failed tests indicate a problem.

A notable change to the networking code between 1.2 and 1.4 was that
we switched to using getaddrinfo() to resolve names.  But that ought
to be able to handle a string with an IP address, as it does on
Linux, etc.  For the server we use:

    hints.ai_flags = AI_PASSIVE | AI_ADDRCONFIG | AI_NUMERICSERV;

And for the client:

    hints.ai_flags = AI_ADDRCONFIG | AI_NUMERICSERV;

The switch to getaddrinfo() was a first step towards IPv6 support,
but also replaces use of an obsolete, non-thread-safe API with a
thread-safe alternative API which we can reasonably expect all
platforms to support by now (getaddrinfo() is the standardised way
to support IPv6, and lack of IPv6 would be a gaping hole in any OS
at this point in time, unless perhaps it has a limited field of
intended use).

IPv6 is currently slated for 1.5.0, but could be backported to
1.4.x is there's actually demand (so far nobody has actually asked
about it that I can recall):

https://trac.xapian.org/ticket/374

Cheers,
    Olly