Re: [boost] Fwd: [signals2][review] little REVIEW

Subject: Re: [boost] Fwd: [signals2][review] little REVIEW
From: vicente.botet (vicente.botet_at_[hidden])
Date: 2008-11-12 05:25:57

> ----- Original Message ----- 
> From: "Frank Mori Hess" <fmhess_at_[hidden]>
> To: <boost_at_[hidden]>
> Sent: Wednesday, November 12, 2008 4:01 AM
> Subject: Re: [boost] Fwd: [signals2][review] little REVIEW
>
>
> On Tuesday 11 November 2008 11:23, Stjepan Rajko wrote:
>> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
>> From:  <Jean-Christophe.BENOIST_at_[hidden]>

>> * On test suite / test cases :
>>
>> - I cannot see any MT test case (from the documentation, in
>> "acceptance tests" section at least). It's rather surprising. I cannot
>> imagine there is no test case for MT (calling a signal while
>> disconnecting slot etc..). In particular, I'd whish to see if this
>> library is robust in a multi-core environment and run test cases in
>> this environment (I know cases where a library is perfectly thread
>> safe on mono-core, even hyperthreading, but fails on multi-core). At
>> least, there should be a rationale explaining why this library should
>> be robust in a multi-core environment (especially with a proprietary
>> signals2::mutex).
>
> It's not obvious to me how to write a test for the library's 
> thread-safeness that is any more focused than "we did some signals stuff 
> in multiple threads and the program didn't crash".  It's sort of like 
> writing a test for memory leaks.  What you need is a debugging tool, like 
> what valgrind's helgrind tries to be.  Then you can have your 
> multi-threaded test program, and the test is whether or not the debugging 
> tool detected any funny business (like multiple threads messing with the 
> same variable without locking).

Yes I know that doing test on a multi-threading environement is not eassy, 
but
we can not deliver a thread safe library without the minimal unit testing
coverage on all the functionalities concerned by the multi-threading.
Please could you take a look on hwo the tests of the Boost.Thread library 
are done.

Regards,

Vicente