Re: [boost] comment on Boost.Test

From: Beman Dawes (bdawes_at_[hidden])
Date: 2001-03-16 13:20:34

At 12:14 PM 3/16/2001, Ronald Garcia wrote:

 >I've been using Boost.Test a bit for some work lately, and I just had
 >a quick comment.  The Test tools have been really great for some of my
 >development work.  I can put together some quick executables to test
 >out functionality, and with the help of gnu automake, I can put
 >together a test suite rather quickly.  My one question is in regard to
 >the Execution tools.
 >
 >I definitely like the feel of the execution tools.  In the past my
 >main functions have generally been wrapped in a sub-sufficient try
 >block to catch exceptions, but with a switch to cppmain, this is taken
 >care of for me.  I was hoping to use the execution tools in production
 >code, but I find the "no errors detected" message to be about the only
 >hindrance to this.  I'd rather not have my apps output this message
 >under normal operation.

Interesting point.  I can see why some would prefer not to see this 
message.  And unit test tools (for which we still need a volunteer) would 
call catch_exceptions many times so shouldn't pester the user with needless 
messages.

 >  Could this message be factored down to the
 >Test tools level (test_main) such that no errors leads to a silent
 >exit from cpp_main?

There are cases were cpp_main users like this message.  They want the 
positive confirmation that the program succeeded.  So moving it to 
test_main wouldn't serve those folks well.

Seems like we need a way to configure the message.  I don't offhand see a 
good way to do that at runtime without changing the interface, which isn't 
desirable.  Maybe a compile time macro.  BOOST_TEST_SUCCESS_MESSAGE if you 
want the message.  What would you think of that?

There is another related issue.  The output message to cerr isn't desirable 
when cerr and cout are going to the same place.

Thanks for the comments, they are appreciated.

--Beman