Bug 16386

Definitely several parts to this:

1) can we get meson to build but not run the test suites
2) how can we copy the test suite into the packages
3) how to run a meson test suite

It would be good to discuss this with the upstream meson maintainers. Last time I tried they were not interested in installable test suites.

Something that might be useful: meson has an 'introspect' command that can dump machine-readable JSON for various bits of the build setup. If that can tell you what the tests are called then it might be possible to automate some of the building/installation/running.

Investigation results: ptest revival is feasible (PoC working)

Tested against systemd 257.6 (meson). Answering the three points from comment 1:

1. Can meson build tests without running them? 
Yes. ninja builds the test binaries at compile time; meson test runs them separately. Meson also writes machine-readable test metadata to <builddir>/meson-info/intro-tests.json (the meson introspect --tests data you suggested) — it enumerates all 1651 tests with name/suite/cmd. So the build-vs-run split that was hard in 2018 is now clean.

2. How to copy the test suite into packages? 
This is now solved upstream. systemd's meson has an install-tests option (meson_options.txt, default false). Enabling it installs the unit-test binaries into ${prefix}/lib/systemd/tests/unit-tests/ plus a run-unit-tests.py runner into ${prefix}/lib/systemd/tests/. 
No manual copying of binaries needed — this is the key thing that changed since the 2018 removal. (So the "installable test suites" concern with upstream meson is moot for systemd specifically; it already ships install_data(...) behind if install_tests.)

3. How to run the suite? 
systemd's installed run-unit-tests.py already globs and runs unit-tests/test-*, printing PASS:/SKIP: per test (rc 77 = skip). That maps almost directly to ptest's expected PASS:/FAIL:/SKIP: output, so a thin run-ptest wrapper is enough.

PoC: a small systemd_%.bbappend — inherit ptest, EXTRA_OEMESON:append = " -Dinstall-tests=true", a do_install_ptest that copies ${prefix}/lib/systemd/tests/* into ${PTEST_PATH}, and a run-ptest wrapping run-unit-tests.py. 
Building systemd -c install produced 313 installed test-* unit-test binaries plus the runner. This covers the systemd:test/libsystemd C unit suites (~230 tests) and the systemd:dist help/version checks (111).

On the user-unit tests (TEST-26-SYSTEMCTL, TEST-55-OOMD, TEST-91-LIVEUPDATE): these are integration tests under test/units/ that expect a booted system via systemd's integration/mkosi harness, not standalone unit-test binaries. They're a separate, harder effort from the meson unit-test suite and probably shouldn't block a first ptest landing. Suggest tracking integration-test-in-ptest separately. (Note: TEST-91-LIVEUPDATE isn't present in 257.6; it's newer.)

Recommendation: re-enable ptest for systemd targeting the meson unit-test suites via install-tests. 
Happy to send a patch.

Patch submitted to openembedded-core: "systemd: re-enable ptest support" (2026-09-04).

It implements the approach described above — enables the meson install-tests option, packages the installed unit-test tree into systemd-ptest, and adds a run-ptest wrapper driving run-unit-tests.py. Verified to parse against oe-core master (systemd 261.2); PoC build done on 257.6 (313 test binaries + runner install cleanly).

As noted, the test/units/*.sh integration tests (TEST-26/55/91) are out of scope for this change and would be a separate integration-test-in-ptest effort.

Message-ID: 20260904080215.2501426-1-HimaniRamesh.Barde@windriver.com