Re: [jamboost] Increasing reliability of main regression test

From: Beman Dawes (bdawes_at_[hidden])
Date: 2003-01-04 20:46:04

At 06:04 PM 1/4/2003, Douglas Gregor wrote:

>I've recently added support into the Boost documentation format for
>expressing
>testsuites directly. From the XML representation of the testsuite, I have 

>written an XSL stylesheet that generates a Jamfile for boost/status (the
>new file boost/status/testsuites.jam is generated this way), and I could
>easily dump the information in another format (e.g., a simplified XML
>format for compiler_status.cpp to read).

I don't think we are going to need that; if Dave is successful adding the 
run-type to the current ----dump-tests output we are home free. Converting 
to the subinclude form should be a big win for everybody:

subinclude $(BOOST_ROOT)/libs/whatever/test ;

>The advantage of using the XML testsuite representation within the 
modified
>DocBook format is that we get testsuite documentation (like Ron Garcia 
did
>in the Multi Array library), autogeneration of Jamfiles (less likely to
>break things),

You're going to have to walk me through that, but I'll take your word for 
it:-)

> and the ability to generate testcases from code snippets in the
>documentation (if you look at the set of "function" testcases for today,
>you'll see that there are lots of failures because my tutorial examples 
are
>riddled with typos).

This will be a wonderful addition. I wish we had had it when the standard 
was being developed. I wouldn't be surprised if there are still dozens of 
errors.

The ability to test examples without maintaining two copies of the codes is 
the feature that will push me to try the XML approach. However, I really am 
going to need a WYSIWYG editor. But that's a different problem; let's get 
the subinclude factorization going so the regression tests break less 
often!

--Beman

--Beman