Re: [boost] [test] [serialization] portable_binary_archive

From: troy d. straszheim (troy_at_[hidden])
Date: 2005-09-18 14:58:05

I implemented some of that plan, to see how it would go.  I tarred up 
the test/ directory for you to peruse, it's at 
http://www.resophonic.com/boost-serialization-test.tar.gz

I added a parameter to the jamfile, BOOST_SERIALIZATION_DATA_ROOT, which 
gets set to BOOST_ROOT/libs/serialization/test/data by default.   I 
messed with test/test_tools.hpp and added a routine 
test_serialization(), where the action is.  It writes a type out to an 
archive, reads it back in, and calls a template function check(), whose 
default implementation is just

BOOST_CHECK(what_was_written_out == what_was_read_in);

I revamped test_vector.cpp, test_simple_class.cpp, test_set.cpp, 
test_null_ptr.cpp, and test_variant.cpp.  In the process I converted 
these to use the cool autoregistering unit-tests.  There are 
corresponding tweaks in the jamfile.

test_serialization("name_of_test", object_to_test) will create tempfiles 
in, as mentioned,

BOOST_SERIALIZATION_DATA_ROOT/
   BOOST_PLATFORM/
     BOOST_VERSION/
       BOOST_COMPILER/
         BOOST_ARCHIVE_TEST/
           name_of_test

so this "name_of_test" has to be unique.  My first implementation had it 
calculating a name based on __FILE__ and an index, but this would cause 
problems when you move test routines around.

test_vector.cpp and test_simple_class.cpp show how much bolierplate code 
disappears with this scheme.  test_variant.cpp and test_set.cpp show 
writing a specialization of check() for the type being tested.  In 
test_null_ptr.cpp you have to write a wrapper class to ensure that the 
two pointer types get written in the right order.  This probably comes 
up a lot, it makes me think that one would like to be able to serialize 
boost::tuple (that one sounds interesting and tractable, I'll have a 
look) so that you could just stack things up that way.

So I believe this clears the way for comparing different boost versions, 
compilers and portable archives across platforms...  test_serialization 
just needs to scan some directories, deserialize from foreign archives, 
and compare.  I think that even if you don't do all that, the changes 
are an improvement maintenance-wise.  Whaddaya think?

-t