MitchellThompkins · MitchellThompkins · Jul 8, 2026 · Jul 9, 2026
diff --git a/Makefile b/Makefile
@@ -46,6 +46,8 @@ DEPENDS := $(shell $(SED) -n -e 's/^[Dd]epends[^,]*, *\(.*\)/\1/p' $(DESCRIPTION
 TARGET_DIR      := target
 RELEASE_DIR     := $(TARGET_DIR)/$(PACKAGE)-$(VERSION)
 RELEASE_TARBALL := $(TARGET_DIR)/$(PACKAGE)-$(VERSION).tar.gz
+RELEASE_DIR_CI     := $(TARGET_DIR)/$(PACKAGE)-$(VERSION)-ci
+RELEASE_TARBALL_CI := $(RELEASE_DIR_CI).tar.gz
 DOCS_HTML_DIR   := docs
 DOCS_DIR        := doc
 DOCS_DEV_DIR    := devel/doc
@@ -69,7 +71,7 @@ DOCS_PDF        := $(DOCS_DIR)/$(PACKAGE).pdf
 DOCS_QCH        := $(DOCS_DIR)/$(PACKAGE).qch
 DOCS_LOGO       := $(DOCS_DIR)/$(PACKAGE).svg
 
-.PHONY: help dist docs-html docs release install all check check-ci check-local run clean
+.PHONY: help dist docs-html docs release install all check check-ci check-local tarball-nodocs run clean
 
 help:
 	@echo " "
@@ -88,6 +90,9 @@ help:
 	@echo "   install   - Install the package in GNU Octave"
 	@echo "   all       - Build all oct files"
 	@echo "   check     - Execute package tests (with install)"
+	@echo "   check-ci  - Build a doc-free tarball, install it, and run tests"
+	@echo "   check-local - Run check-ci inside Docker via compose"
+	@echo "   tarball-nodocs - Build a doc-free tarball without running tests"
 	@echo
 	@echo "   clean     - Remove releases, doc and oct files"
 	@echo "   distclean - Remove releases, oct files and compiled libraries"
@@ -135,6 +140,26 @@ $(RELEASE_DIR): .git/index
 	@cd $@/$(SRC) && ./bootstrap && $(RM) -r "autom4te.cache"
 	@chmod -R a+rX,u+w,go-w "$@"
 
+$(RELEASE_DIR_CI): .git/index
+	@echo "Creating CI package dist directory $@ ..."
+	@-$(RM) -r $@
+	@mkdir -p $@
+	@echo "  git archive ..."
+	@GIT_CONFIG_COUNT=1 GIT_CONFIG_KEY_0=safe.directory GIT_CONFIG_VALUE_0="$(abspath .)" \
+	  git archive -o $@/tmp.tar HEAD
+	@cd $@ && tar -xf tmp.tar && $(RM) tmp.tar
+	@echo "  copy slicot files ..."
+	@mkdir -p $@/$(SC)/$(SC_LAPACK)
+	@cp -t $@/$(SC)/$(SC_SRC) $(SC_SUBMOD)/$(SC_SRC)/*.f
+	@cp -t $@/$(SC)/$(SC_LAPACK) $(SC_SUBMOD)/$(SC_LAPACK)/*.f
+	@cp $(SC_SUBMOD)/LICENSE   $@/$(SC_SRC)/../
+	@cp $(SC_SUBMOD)/README.md $@/$(SC_SRC)/../README-SLICOT.md
+	@cp $(SC_SUBMOD)/LICENSE   $@/$(SC_DOC)/
+	@cp $(SC_SUBMOD)/README.md $@/$(SC_DOC)/README-SLICOT.md
+	@echo "  bootstrap ..."
+	@cd $@/$(SRC) && ./bootstrap && $(RM) -r "autom4te.cache"
+	@chmod -R a+rX,u+w,go-w "$@"
+
 docs-html:
 	@echo "Updating HTML documentation ... "
 	@cd $(DOCS_HTML_DIR) && $(OCTAVE) \
@@ -208,15 +233,16 @@ check: install
 	$(OCTAVE) --path "inst/" --path "src/" \
 	  --eval 'pkg test control'
 
-check-ci:
-	test -f $(SRC)/Makefile.conf || (cd $(SRC) && ./bootstrap && ./configure)
-	$(MAKE) -C $(SRC) all
+check-ci: tarball-nodocs
 	$(OCTAVE) --no-gui --version
-	$(OCTAVE) --no-gui --path "inst/" --path "src/" devel/run_tests.m
+	$(OCTAVE) --no-gui --eval 'pkg install "$(RELEASE_TARBALL_CI)"'
+	$(OCTAVE) --no-gui devel/run_tests.m
 
 check-local:
 	docker compose --file devel/compose.yaml --project-directory . run --rm octave
 
+tarball-nodocs: $(RELEASE_TARBALL_CI)
+
 clean:
 	$(RM) -r $(TARGET_DIR)
 	$(MAKE) -C $(SRC) clean

diff --git a/ci.md b/ci.md
@@ -0,0 +1,26 @@
+# CI Notes
+
+## Why check-ci builds its own tarball
+
+The canonical way to test an Octave package is `pkg install` followed by
+`pkg test`. Both require an installable tarball, which `make dist` normally
+produces.
+
+`make dist` cannot run in the CI Docker image (`gnuoctave/octave`) because
+the PDF documentation step fails. The `makeinfo --pdf` step invokes `pdfetex`,
+which cannot include SVG images, and the manual references the project logo as
+an SVG. No conversion toolchain (inkscape, rsvg-convert, etc.) is present in
+the image.
+
+The `check-ci` target works around this by building a doc-free tarball via the
+`RELEASE_DIR_CI` make target. That target mirrors `RELEASE_DIR` (used by
+`make dist`) but omits the three lines that copy the PDF, QCH, and logo into
+the package directory.
+
+## Git safe.directory in Docker
+
+The CI container runs as root while the bind-mounted source tree is owned by
+the host user. Git 2.35.2 and later refuse to operate on repositories owned
+by a different user. The `RELEASE_DIR_CI` recipe passes the trust exception
+via environment variables (`GIT_CONFIG_COUNT`, `GIT_CONFIG_KEY_0`,
+`GIT_CONFIG_VALUE_0`) so no global git config file is modified.
diff --git a/devel/run_tests.m b/devel/run_tests.m
@@ -1,57 +1,9 @@
-## Run embedded %!test blocks from source without installing the package.
-##
-## The canonical way (according to the docs I've found) to to actually test is
-## to call 'pkg test control' but that  is coupled to docs today because it
-## requires you to install first, but to install you have to build a release
-## tarball with dist which depends on docs. This is a "hack" to get around that
-## and just run the tests directly. This should probably change in the future
-## b/c searching and grepping through a bunch of src files to test is very
-## awkward.
+## Run embedded %!test blocks from the installed control package.
 ##
 ## Called by 'make check-ci'. Exit code is nonzero if any tests fail.
 
-## Register autoloads from PKG_ADD directives (normally done by pkg install)
-
-src_path = fullfile (fileparts (mfilename ("fullpath")), "..", "src");
-
-## Find all .cc files in src/ b/c those are compiled to .oct files. We literally
-## just want this out of the cpp files so that we know what .oct file we should
-## target
-## // PKG_ADD: autoload ("__sl_sb03md__", "__control_slicot_functions__.oct");
-cc_files = glob (fullfile (src_path, "*.cc"));
-
-## Read every file and grep of PKG_ADD, call autoload() on it with the absolute
-## path to the .oct file. Autoload registers a deffered load which tells octave
-## "when someone calls funcname, load filepath to find it, the .oct file isn't
-## actually loaded until that first call"
-for i = 1:numel (cc_files)
-  txt = fileread (cc_files{i});
-  ## Use a regex to capture the 2 arguments (function name and .oct filename)
-  toks = regexp (txt, 'PKG_ADD: autoload \("(\w+)", "(\w+\.oct)"\)', "tokens");
-  for j = 1:numel (toks)
-    autoload (toks{j}{1}, fullfile (src_path, toks{j}{2}));
-  endfor
-endfor
-
-## Find all the class dirs to test ("inst", "inst/@tf", etc...)
-dirs = [{"inst"}, cellstr(glob ("inst/@*"))'];
-
-n_pass = 0;
-n_total = 0;
-
-## For every dir we collected, go through every mfile and call test
-for i = 1:numel (dirs)
-  mfiles = dir (fullfile (dirs{i}, "*.m"));
-  for j = 1:numel (mfiles)
-    f = fullfile (mfiles(j).folder, mfiles(j).name);
-    ## collect output args from test call
-    ## https://docs.octave.org/v11.1.0/Test-Functions.html
-    [p, total, xfail, xbug, skip, rtskip] = test (f, "quiet", stdout);
-    n_pass += p;
-    n_total += total - xfail - xbug - skip - rtskip;
-  endfor
-endfor
-
-n_fail = n_total - n_pass;
-fprintf ("\nTotal: %d passed, %d failed\n", n_pass, n_fail);
-exit (n_fail > 0);
+pkg load control;
+info = pkg ("list", "control"){1};
+dirs = [{info.dir}, cellstr(glob (fullfile (info.dir, "@*")))'];
+[~, nfail] = __run_test_suite__ (dirs, {});
+exit (nfail > 0);