I have the following error in distutils on AIX.

======================================================================
ERROR: test_search_cpp (distutils.tests.test_config_cmd.ConfigTestCase)
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/san_cis/home/cis/.buildbot/python-aix6/3.x.phenix.xlc/build/Lib/distutils/unixccompiler.py", line 166, in preprocess
    self.spawn(pp_args)
  File "/san_cis/home/cis/.buildbot/python-aix6/3.x.phenix.xlc/build/Lib/distutils/ccompiler.py", line 911, in spawn
    spawn(cmd, dry_run=self.dry_run)
  File "/san_cis/home/cis/.buildbot/python-aix6/3.x.phenix.xlc/build/Lib/distutils/spawn.py", line 34, in spawn
    _spawn_posix(cmd, search_path, dry_run=dry_run)
  File "/san_cis/home/cis/.buildbot/python-aix6/3.x.phenix.xlc/build/Lib/distutils/spawn.py", line 138, in _spawn_posix
    % (cmd[0], exit_status))
distutils.errors.DistutilsExecError: command 'xlc' failed with exit status 40

During handling of the above exception, another exception occurred:

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/san_cis/home/cis/.buildbot/python-aix6/3.x.phenix.xlc/build/Lib/distutils/tests/test_config_cmd.py", line 47, in test_search_cpp
    match = cmd.search_cpp(pattern='xxx', body='// xxx')
  File "/san_cis/home/cis/.buildbot/python-aix6/3.x.phenix.xlc/build/Lib/distutils/command/config.py", line 203, in search_cpp
    src, out = self._preprocess(body, headers, include_dirs, lang)
  File "/san_cis/home/cis/.buildbot/python-aix6/3.x.phenix.xlc/build/Lib/distutils/command/config.py", line 126, in _preprocess
    self.compiler.preprocess(src, out, include_dirs=include_dirs)
  File "/san_cis/home/cis/.buildbot/python-aix6/3.x.phenix.xlc/build/Lib/distutils/unixccompiler.py", line 168, in preprocess
    raise CompileError(msg)
distutils.errors.CompileError: command 'xlc' failed with exit status 40

I haven't investigated yet.

After three years can we close this test failure as "out of date"?

I don't have any AIX environment to try to reproduce the issue, so feel free to close it.

After even more years - I see the same test failing, just a bit different.

And, others....

in short:

./python Lib/test/test_distutils.py
...
Ran 245 tests in 10.337s

FAILED (errors=7, skipped=31)

I have managed to get this to:

FAILED (errors=1, skipped=37)

And this is still:

ERROR: test_search_cpp (distutils.tests.test_config_cmd.ConfigTestCase)

So, moving forward now.

a) Is this normal?

root@x065:[/data/prj/python/git/python3-3.7]./python -m unittest test.test_distutils

----------------------------------------------------------------------
Ran 0 tests in 0.000s

OK

In short - at the start I had:

./python Lib/test/test_distutils.py 
...
ERROR: test_run (distutils.tests.test_build_clib.BuildCLibTestCase)
ERROR: test_build_ext (distutils.tests.test_build_ext.BuildExtTestCase)
ERROR: test_get_outputs (distutils.tests.test_build_ext.BuildExtTestCase)
ERROR: test_build_ext (distutils.tests.test_build_ext.ParallelBuildExtTestCase)
ERROR: test_get_outputs (distutils.tests.test_build_ext.ParallelBuildExtTestCase)
ERROR: test_search_cpp (distutils.tests.test_config_cmd.ConfigTestCase)
ERROR: test_record_extensions (distutils.tests.test_install.InstallTestCase)

That is now down to:
ERROR: test_search_cpp (distutils.tests.test_config_cmd.ConfigTestCase)

There were two issues for search_cpp:
a) xlc -E needs -C to include comments in the output - this should be fixed
b) xlc -E does not accept -o as an argument - output must be to stdout, and sadly I am not clever enough to fix that. Help appreciated.

As is: the error was:

ERROR: test_search_cpp (distutils.tests.test_config_cmd.ConfigTestCase)
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/data/prj/python/git/xlc-python3-3.7/Lib/distutils/unixccompiler.py", line 107, in preprocess
    self.spawn(pp_args)
  File "/data/prj/python/git/xlc-python3-3.7/Lib/distutils/ccompiler.py", line 909, in spawn
    spawn(cmd, dry_run=self.dry_run)
  File "/data/prj/python/git/xlc-python3-3.7/Lib/distutils/spawn.py", line 36, in spawn
    _spawn_posix(cmd, search_path, dry_run=dry_run)
  File "/data/prj/python/git/xlc-python3-3.7/Lib/distutils/spawn.py", line 159, in _spawn_posix
    % (cmd, exit_status))
distutils.errors.DistutilsExecError: command 'xlc_r' failed with exit status 40

During handling of the above exception, another exception occurred:

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/data/prj/python/git/xlc-python3-3.7/Lib/distutils/tests/test_config_cmd.py", line 49, in test_search_cpp
    match = cmd.search_cpp(pattern='xxx', body='/* xxx */')
  File "/data/prj/python/git/xlc-python3-3.7/Lib/distutils/command/config.py", line 201, in search_cpp
    src, out = self._preprocess(body, headers, include_dirs, lang)
  File "/data/prj/python/git/xlc-python3-3.7/Lib/distutils/command/config.py", line 124, in _preprocess
    self.compiler.preprocess(src, out, include_dirs=include_dirs)
  File "/data/prj/python/git/xlc-python3-3.7/Lib/distutils/unixccompiler.py", line 109, in preprocess
    raise CompileError(msg)
distutils.errors.CompileError: command 'xlc_r' failed with exit status 40

and it is now:
======================================================================
ERROR: test_search_cpp (distutils.tests.test_config_cmd.ConfigTestCase)
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/data/prj/python/git/python3-3.7/Lib/distutils/tests/test_config_cmd.py", line 49, in test_search_cpp
    match = cmd.search_cpp(pattern='xxx', body='/* xxx */')
  File "/data/prj/python/git/python3-3.7/Lib/distutils/command/config.py", line 206, in search_cpp
    file = open(out)
FileNotFoundError: [Errno 2] No such file or directory: '_configtest.i'

*********
The code I do not know how to fix is:

File: Lib/distutils/command/config.py
    def _preprocess(self, body, headers, include_dirs, lang):
        src = self._gen_temp_sourcefile(body, headers, lang)
        out = "_configtest.i"
        self.temp_files.extend([src, out])
        self.compiler.preprocess(src, out, include_dirs=include_dirs)
        return (src, out)

See https://github.com/aixtools/cpython/tree/bpo-11191 for my changes

Just tested the patch presented.

For Python3-3.6.4 the patch in PR-5206 works as is, however, for Python3-3.5.4 - the patch to Lib/test/support/__init__.py does not work.

So, for Python3-3.5, Python3-3.6 and Python3-master - the test test_search_cpp is resolved.

As that is the "literal" question here - I am removing the patch to Lib/test/support/__init__.py so that the same tests fail (for different reasons). I'll open a new issue for these tests - so that this PR can be applied to all current Python3 branches (and skip the test_search_cpp test when the compiler is not gcc on AIX).

HTH!

I hope this can be reviewed and eventually closed - not because it is X years old and unresolved - but because it is resolved for the latest branches!

Thx

@tarek - anything specific/extra you need?

The current PR8709 resolves two issues, not one - so will create a new issue for the second element.

Am also shorting the NEWS text, with the expanded explanation here as:

* skip the distutils test 'test_search_cpp' when not gcc as compiler
  because not all compilers, e.g. IBM xlc et al do not support
  redirected stdout when using the argument -E (aka cpp_preprocessing)
  while gcc is know to support the pair -E -o outputfile

The additional find while researching this issue:
* add the argument '-C' for AIX xlc cpp processing so comments are
    included in the cpp output rather than replaced by a single ' ' (space) char.

New changeset ed57e13df60ce28ba89bd49c9c5a15b1d9bf79c7 by Nick Coghlan (Michael Felt) in branch 'master':
bpo-11191: skip unsupported test_distutils case for AIX with xlc (GH-8709)
https://github.com/python/cpython/commit/ed57e13df60ce28ba89bd49c9c5a15b1d9bf79c7