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From: Martin Bonner (Martin.Bonner_at_[hidden])
Date: 2007-11-05 13:19:20


From: David Abrahams

> on Thu Nov 01 2007, Beman Dawes <bdawes-AT-acm.org> wrote:
>> I don't know how to do that for system specific fixes on platforms
>> Boost isn't testing and I don't have access to. For libraries like
>> Boost.System and Boost.Filesystem I have to take such patches on
>> faith. Of course I inspect them to make sure they appear reasonable
>> and don't affect other platforms.
>
> The person submitting the patch surely describes to you the problem
> the patch should be fixing, no?
>
> If you don't have access to the platform, create a test and tweak
> until it fails in the way described.

I don't see how you can do that with system specific errors. Consider:
"The foobarfs file system returns duff information if stat is called
twice in succession on the same file. Fix by calling stat on /dev/null
after each call to stat (unless calling stat on /dev/null, in which case
call stat on / first.)"

I don't see how you could possibly rig up a test case for that unless
you have a system with foobarfs to hand.

Alternatively, how about a compiler which won't accept valid code, but
will accept some invalid code to perform the equivalent operation? How
do you write a test case for that without the compiler?

-- 
Martin Bonner
Senior Software Engineer/Team Leader
PI SHURLOK LTD
Telephone: +44 1223 441434 / 203894 (direct)
Fax: +44 1223 203999
Email: martin.bonner_at_[hidden]
www.pi-shurlok.com
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