RE: [boost] Factoring out Test Library wrapstrstream

From: Rozental, Gennadiy (gennadiy.rozental_at_[hidden])
Date: 2002-11-26 17:13:19

> (3) fully included
> The problem with this is that I put the burden of doing so to 
> the user.

I do not get it. In this case you are the user (of Boost.Test library). To
use fully included version you are using

#include <boost/test/included/test_exec_monitor.hpp>

And that's it. No need for linking.

> I could use jamfiles, but jam builds doesn't work on every supported
> platform.
> For instance, it doesn't work on mine (borland), so I can't resort to
> jamfiles to attach the test framework to a simple test with a 
> single file.

Works for me.  On windows I am testing using MSVC, GCC and BCC.
Look on Boost.Test unit tests Jamfile.
 
> (2) fully linked
> Similarly, this requires me (and eventually the end user) to 
> compile the
> test framwwork with every platform I want to test against. 
> This is a burden
> in some cases. For example, since Borland doesn't work with 
> bjam, I need to
> do it by hand for this compiler. Similarly, I need to go 
> through all the
> trouble of building the test framework with every compiler I 
> want to test my
> code against. This is too much for a single file test which 
> would use just a
> small subset of the Test Framework

AFAIK Boost.Test is compiled and works for all supported
compilers/platforms. With and without Jamfile.

> Great.
> If I'm not mistaken, most of the stuff from test_tools.hpp 
> can be rearranged
> so that it becomes self-contained.
> That is, it would be possible to use some of it by simply including
> test_tools.hpp, with possibly a macro switch to indicate that its
> definitions shall be included right into the translation unit being
> compiled.

No. Majority of the staff in test_tools.hpp depends on unit_test_log,
unit_test_results and on test_tools.cpp of course. Those three modules
constitute the 80 percent of unit test framework and separating them would
not buy you to much.
 
> Even if you rearrange test-tools so that it can be used 
> standalone without
> external modules that needs to be linked or added to the 
> project, I think
> that wrapstrstream() would be quite useful on its own. Using 
> a text stream
> to quickly format text on the fly is a very common operation, and
> wrapstrstream() provides a nice solution for it.
> 

All right. I will try to prepare standalone file + doc for submission. Do we
need the review for this?

> Best regards,
> 
> Fernando Cacciola

Gennadiy.