Re:Re:[boost] Serialization lib comments and problems

From: Robert Ramey (ramey_at_[hidden])
Date: 2004-01-17 12:15:50

Tom Wenisch wrote:

>Can someone tell me how to run this test?  I tried the following (on
>Linux, with tcsh):

The serialization library draft # 13 contains the file
runtest.sh in  directory BOOST_ROOT/libs/serialization/test

The contents of this file are:

if test $# -eq 0 
then
        echo "usage: $0 <toolset>"
else
        echo "Running tests for $1"
        bjam --dump-test -sTOOLS=$1 >bjam.log 2>&1
        process_jam_log <bjam.log
        compiler_status c:/boost-dev/ compiler_status.html
fi

I have run this with my MKS Kornshell on my windows NT
system.  I believe it should run with little or no change on
a unix shell.

As written it presumes that your boost directory is named
c:/boost-dev - obviously this is presumptuos.  So I would 
recommend altering the script to:

if test $# -eq 0 
then
        echo "usage: $0 <toolset>"
else
        echo "Running tests for $1"
        bjam --dump-test -sTOOLS=$1 >bjam.log 2>&1
        process_jam_log <bjam.log
        compiler_status $BOOST_ROOT compiler_status.html
fi

and make sure BOOST_ROOT is set before you start.

Better yet,  just execute the commands in the script one by one from the command
line so you can see what's happening.  There are only three.

I realise that running this test suite takes a little horsing around 
(building process_jam_log, compiler_status, etc, tweaking script
and miscelleanious other little issues)  BUT it is extremely worthwhile
and I would encourage everyone who has interest in the serialization
library to try it.

The whole bjam/regression/tools thing is not quite where it should be
as far as I'm concerned and I've had to spend more time than I think
it should in order to make do what I need it to do.  However,  I have 
been able to make it work and something like this is absolutely
indispensible to project of this nature.  I don't know what I would
do if I didn't have it.  I've never seen any other product commercial
or open source that aspires to do what this does.  The basic idea
is right on - to separate the specifications of libary build from the
the compiler/platform so that libraries and platforms can be
composed independantly.  I'm not asking for anything specific, 
just confessing my love-hate relationship with this thing

Robert Ramey