[boost] Re: BOOST_CHECK_EQUAL() dangers

From: Markus Schöpflin (markus.schoepflin_at_[hidden])
Date: 2002-11-21 04:06:54

Gennadiy Rozental wrote:

 >>1. Just document it. Not so good, IMHO.
 >>
 >> 2. Document the special case and add a check for NULL pointers
 >> before calling strcmp().
 >>
 >> 3. Remove the special case alltogether. After all, I might want
 >> to check that the pointers are equal and not the string they
 >> point to. This might be the best solution, but breaks backward
 >> compatibility.
 >
 > In majority of the cases when user is comparing two character
 > pointers he need namely "string comparison". Requiring to cast both
 > sides to std::string is a big burden IMO. So I would choose
 > solution 2.

Actually I was hoping you would choose option 3. :-) For me, option 2 
just doesn't feel right. And I think it's not in the spirit of the 
standard, either. (Implicit conversion from char * to string doesn't 
exist, a char * is just a pointer.) I would classify this as 
"suprising behaviour" which should be avoided wherever possible.

But you're the one to decide and if you go for option 2 please add a 
big red warning to the docs.

Markus