Re: [boost] unit test framework comments

From: Beman Dawes (bdawes_at_[hidden])
Date: 2001-10-30 19:37:17

At 02:31 PM 10/30/2001, Mike Attili wrote:

 >Specific comments on the present implementation below,
 >but first a more general observation.
 >
 >It seems to me that there should be a clean separation
 >between the 'test tools' and the 'unit test tools'. At
 >the moment, 'test_tools.hpp' simply includes 'unit_test.hpp'.
 >
 >I see the 'test tools' interface comprising the current
 >'unit_test_tools.hpp' and 'unit_test_log.hpp' plus
 >'test_main.cpp'. This gives one the ability to use
 >the various BOOST_TEST(), BOOST_CHECK(), etc. macros
 >without pulling in the whole test case/test suite
 >machinery. There would always only be one test case
 >so there is no sense in setting the number of test
 >cases or reporting progress.

That was like my original design, but Ullrich Koethe and others felt that 
test tools could be more sophisticated if they were built on top of the 
unit test framework.  In my mind that makes the unit test tools 
unnecessarily complex and introduces an undesirable dependency.  On the 
plus side, it does make the test tools more capable, and more uniform with 
unit tests.

At the time of that discussion, I don't think we realized that adding the 
dependency on unit test might mean that test tools could become unusable on 
some platforms.

--Beman