Developer adds tests to PowerShell VM script after spotting one-character logic risk
A developer maintaining a PowerShell script that automates Fedora and other Linux VM builds in VirtualBox discovered a subtle fragility in its state-checking function. The function uses VBoxManage to detect when a VM has powered off, relying on a wildcard filter to isolate the VMState field from the machine-readable output. A single equals sign in the pattern 'VMState=*' prevents it from accidentally matching VMStateChangeTime, a similarly named field that appears in the same output. Had the filter been written as 'VMState*', the function could have returned a timestamp instead of a state value, silently stalling the install loop for up to 90 minutes. No bug was found, but the developer wrote six unit tests to formally document and protect the assumption going forward.
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