Re: [lightweight_test] cpp_main convention

From: Peter Dimov (pdimov_at_[hidden])
Date: 2020-03-25 23:37:00

Mateusz Loskot wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I noticed this as popular convention across Boost libraries (e.g. endian) 
> to deal with test cases  that may throw or leak exceptions:
>
> int cpp_main( int argc, char* argv[] )
...

> Is there any reason to prefer that one over this one?
>
> int main( int argc, char* argv[] )
...

cpp_main is not a convention. It's mostly useful when you already have a 
common `main` provided by the test framework, whether inside the static test 
framework library or in a header such as

https://github.com/boostorg/detail/blob/develop/include/boost/detail/lightweight_main.hpp

The current state of affairs in Endian is because it used to use 
<boost/detail/lightweight_main.hpp> and I switched away from it to avoid 
having to depend on Detail.

https://github.com/boostorg/endian/commit/3a50c15a9734439598b46442568b375a52c9d63d#diff-a722f1e609137ba8f239c06ae197a0a8

In a self-contained test, there is no need to use cpp_main. Just write 
`main` the usual straightforward way.