P2 --- the MIXED arm said "OK" and exited 0 while its likeliest cause
is vacuity. Reaching it means cargo failed, at least one `test result:`
line exists, and none says FAILED --- i.e. the named tests may have run
CLEAN against the old tree, the vacuous outcome, with an unrelated
failure supplying the exit status. The message admitted as much while
the exit code contradicted it, so a scripted caller, or a framing doc
quoting "bite exited 0", would record a certified bite. It now exits 4
and is labelled INCONCLUSIVE rather than OK. The exit ladder in the
header gains the code.
While exercising that arm I found the review's stated trigger --- and
my own comment repeating it --- is WRONG, which is worth more than the
fix. `--test A --test B`, where B's swapped file will not build, does
NOT produce MIXED: cargo builds every named target before running any,
so B's build failure stops A from running too and the swapped run
emits no summary at all. Verified by running exactly that shape
against an ancient `tests/m4_acceptance.rs`; it lands in COMPILE, as
it should. What genuinely reaches MIXED is a run that prints summaries
and *then* fails --- doc-tests failing to compile after the lib tests
pass, or a harness dying after its summary line.
So the arm stays as defence but is documented as defensive, and the
ledger lists it as the one path NOT reproduced rather than implying
the validation was complete. Manufacturing a doc-test failure to reach
it would test the arm at the cost of a contrived fixture; saying which
paths were executed and which were not is the more useful record.
Two wording fixes from the same round. The COMPILE message said the
file "does not build against the current tree", but the no-summary
condition also covers a harness that built and then died before
printing one; it now says "produced no test summary (build failure, or
a harness that died before printing one)" so the label never overstates
the observation. And the colour comment no longer overclaims: exporting
CARGO_TERM_COLOR=never defeats an ambient variable, but an explicit
`--color always` in the passed-through args still beats the
environment. Self-inflicted and fail-closed, and now said so.
Levi Neuwirth
8d93fc6978