Re: [Boost-build] Leave target on failure?

Subject: Re: [Boost-build] Leave target on failure?
From: Johan Nilsson (r.johan.nilsson_at_[hidden])
Date: 2010-01-08 08:37:18

Vladimir Prus wrote:
> On Monday 07 December 2009 13:25:31 Johan Nilsson wrote:
>
>> Hi,
>>
>> I've discovered a "minor" design flaw in my NUnit generator under
>> development (same as previously discussed here).
>>
>> The generator generates two main outputs (if XML output is
>> activated):
>>
>> - The "target name".nunit file, used to detect if the tests are
>> up-to-date and were run successfully.
>> - The XML report, used to store details on tests run and their
>> success.
>>
>> Now, when one or more of the tests fail at runtime, the XML report is
>> deleted as well - which is obviously not what I'd like. What would
>> be the best design for allowing to leave the XML report behind, if:
>>
>> 1. The tests are actually run (no problems with e.g. the test runner
>> not being able to find or load the shared libraries containing the
>> tests, or their runtime dependencies).
>> 2. One or more of the tests fail at runtime (the test runner then
>> exits with a non-zero status code).
>>
>> If (1) above fails, i.e. there is a problem with the actual runner
>> execution, I think the XML report should get deleted as no tests were
>> actually created.
>>
>> Any comments / design suggestions?
>
> I have looked at the build engine code and now at least capable of
> asking semi-intelligent questions.
>
> I think I can implement, inside bjam, a mechanism to leave a given
> target even
> if the action to update it fails -- so this should help with leaving
> XML report
> if the runner returns non-zero exit status. That's not exactly the
> behaviour you
> want.
>
> To implement the behaviour you want, how can we distinguish between
> cases (1)
> and (2) above? Does runner return different error codes? Or there's
> some other
> approach?

Coming back to this problem after some time. I've checked the source code 
for the test runner and it seems like:

- A negative status code is set if (1) occurs.
- A positive status code, corresponding to the no of failing tests, is set 
if (2) occurs.

Does this help?

/ Johan