The full test suite has something like 354 tests. regrtest writes one line per test, and if you use Python compiled in debug mode you have much more lines because of "[123 refs]" lines written by subprocesses.

It's difficult to check if a previous test failed or not. If your terminal has a small backlog (e.g. 200 lines), it is maybe just not possible to know. In buildbot logs, it is also hard to search the first failure because the log is very verbose.

Attached patch adds " -- 1 failure" suffix after the first failure. If you use the -j option, the number of failure is written directly (because the test name is only printed after the test is done). By default, the counter is incremented *after* the failure.

--

Example (I modified test_os to ensure that it fails):

marge$ ./python -m test test_os test_sys test_os test_sys
[1/4] test_os
test test_os crashed -- Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/home/haypo/prog/HG/cpython/Lib/test/regrtest.py", line 1047, in runtest_inner
    the_package = __import__(abstest, globals(), locals(), [])
  File "/home/haypo/prog/HG/cpython/Lib/test/test_os.py", line 5, in <module>
    assert 1 == 0
AssertionError

[2/4] test_sys -- 1 failure
[37703 refs]
[37701 refs]
[37954 refs]
[37919 refs]
[3/4] test_os -- 1 failure
test test_os crashed -- Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/home/haypo/prog/HG/cpython/Lib/test/regrtest.py", line 1047, in runtest_inner
    the_package = __import__(abstest, globals(), locals(), [])
  File "/home/haypo/prog/HG/cpython/Lib/test/test_os.py", line 5, in <module>
    assert 1 == 0
AssertionError

[4/4] test_sys -- 2 failures
[37703 refs]
[37701 refs]
[37954 refs]
[37919 refs]
2 tests OK.
1 test failed:
    test_os
[98160 refs]

See also issue #12073.

+1 on the idea.

How about instead changing [1/4], [2/4] etc to be [1/4/0], [2/4/0], etc?

New changeset 2da7577fa393 by Victor Stinner in branch '3.2':
Issue #12074: regrtest displays also the current number of failures
http://hg.python.org/cpython/rev/2da7577fa393

New changeset 60b0131fbea8 by Victor Stinner in branch 'default':
(Merge 3.2) Issue #12074: regrtest displays also the current number of failures
http://hg.python.org/cpython/rev/60b0131fbea8

> How about instead changing [1/4], [2/4] etc 
> to be [1/4/0], [2/4/0], etc?

Great, I like it, and it's commited.

New changeset 396f4ed61db7 by Ezio Melotti in branch '3.2':
#12074: remove the /0 when there are no failures.
http://hg.python.org/cpython/rev/396f4ed61db7

New changeset 9de2b1a5ee6b by Ezio Melotti in branch 'default':
#12074: merge with 3.2.
http://hg.python.org/cpython/rev/9de2b1a5ee6b

I removed the /0 when there are no failures after a short discussion on #python-dev.  FWIW I'm -0 on the /N, but now that it's not displayed if there are no failures it won't bother me too much.