[boost] [test] DLL support, boost_test_runner

From: Gennadiy Rozental (gennadiy.rozental_at_[hidden])
Date: 2005-12-14 12:40:48

Hi,

As most of you know Boost.Test did not support DLL build for NT platform. 
The primary reasons were:

* DLL should have all symbols resolved
* main couldn't reside in DLL

On the other hand shared libraries work as expected on *NIXes. To support 
the DLL build on NT I introduced different initialization scheme for dynamic 
build. With new scheme there no need for dll version of Test Exec Monitor. 
Unit Test framework should be used instead.
  Now Boost.Test supports DLL build it could also be properly used from 
within other DLLs. This should fix two open bug reports in this regard. Also 
this facility allowed to build stand alone test runner for tests build into 
DLLs. New tool is named: boost_test_runner. To use it one should build the 
test into DLL linking with DLL version of Unit Test framework. Now the test 
could be invoked like this:

boost_test_runner --test <test_library> <rest of parameters for unit test>.

boost_test_runner will load the library, invoke init function and if it 
succeed starts the testing.

There is one important point that I would like to hear boosters opinion on: 
New API is incompatible with old one. What that mean is that users of shared 
libraries on platforms that were supporting building .so before will 
experience failures when switched to next release. But on the other hand I 
would prefer to keep the same semantics for all shared library users (both 
on NT and *NIXes). What should be preferred?

Another question is: where boost_test_runner should reside?

Regards,

Gennadiy