Multiple test failures when building with --with-expat

[hannob]

Multiple test failures when building with --with-expat

[nielsdos]

Thanks for the report. The failures come from both the evolution of the expat library, and because some tests assume libxml2 behaviour with respect to error handling. There are small differences in how errors are handled and reported which cause visible differences in the tests. The differences are not bugs. The solution I went with was to split the tests.

I'm unsure about the support status of expat in php.

Still works, just not tested on a regular basis.

But when building, it links against both libxml2 and expat, and I'm unsure what the implications are.

The XML extension links against expat, but since you still have other XML extension enabled (e.g. the DOM extension), they link against libxml2. This has no negative impact.

Those docs also link to a very old expat webpage, and the notes about building expat are probably obsolete. I think it would be good to update and clarify those docs.

I've made a PR to update the expat library URLs too: php/doc-base#117

(The setlocale failures seem unrelated to expat/xml, they also appear when building with default options)

Seems harmless, it's configuration related.

[nielsdos]

We could add it to the nightly workflow.
Either as a small seperate task or by compiling the xml extension shared twice and loading each of them once to test. Probably the first option is the most easy one. Cc @iluuu1994 what do you think?

[iluuu1994]

@nielsdos That makes sense to me.

[hartwork]

@nielsdos is there a chance that the CI could be made to also cover compilation and test execution with --with-expat so that it's impossible to break without noticing in the future?