Re: [boost] Bug-fix volunteers: risks, downsides?

Subject: Re: [boost] Bug-fix volunteers: risks, downsides?
From: Rene Rivera (grafikrobot_at_[hidden])
Date: 2010-11-03 12:53:21

On 11/3/2010 11:34 AM, Jim Bell wrote:
>
>
> On 1:59 PM, David Abrahams wrote:
>> At Tue, 02 Nov 2010 16:16:37 -0500,
>> Jim Bell wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>> On 1:59 PM, Dave Abrahams wrote:
>>>> On Sun, Oct 31, 2010 at 9:30 PM, Jim Bell<Jim_at_[hidden]>  wrote:
>>>>> Where the most instruction is needed is in building and running the
>>>>> regression tests in isolation. My method might be a bit unorthodox: hack
>>>>> run.py, then regression.py, and operate things just like a regression
>>>>> test, but without uploading data. (More detail later.)
>>>> That sounds much harder than simply running "bjam" in the library's
>>>> test/ subdirectory.
>>>>
>>> Thanks! That does sound much easier. I didn't see that anywhere in the docs.
>> That's a cryin' shame.  Everyone seems to think they need to generate
>> HTML, etc. etc. in order to run the tests, when all you need is bjam.
>
> Could we add a section to
> <http://www.boost.org/development/running_regression_tests.html>,
> describing running tests locally? (Or at least a link to the page
> describing this?) That's the only documentation I've found (though I
> could easily have missed something).

There's also some brief mention of testing in the library author's test 
policy documentation <http://www.boost.org/development/test.html>. But 
it doesn't really mention the usual "run bjam in your test dir" 
procedure. So we do really need to add something about that.

> I've burned a few hours on this. (And, more importantly, perceived it to
> be a difficult thing to do in isolation.)
>
> Will all command lines (i.e., compiler/linker flags) be identical to the
> real regression tests?

They are semantically the same. I.e. there's no difference from running 
bjam in the individual lib test dirs vs. running it in the 
boost-root/status dir, which runs all of the test and which is what the 
testing system does. The latter just runs the individual ones in 
sequence. Of course there will be platform and setup differences 
depending on what the individual testers have done to create their 
system and toolsets.

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