Re: [Boost-build] Compile tests for headers

From: João Abecasis (jpabecasis_at_[hidden])
Date: 2006-04-19 09:21:08

Kevin Wheatley wrote:
> João Abecasis wrote:
>> What do others think about this? I'd like to hear your comments on the
>> approach and implementation, as well as bug reports ;-)
> 
> In general I like the idea as a feature for my own use too.
> 
> Bug? When you have 0 found headers in a directory though you get an
> error relating to the lack of tests...
> *** argument error
> * rule test-suite ( suite-name : tests + )
> * called with: ( repository.headers :  )
> * missing argument tests

Aha! In this case, I'm not sure it is a bug. test-suite is part of 
Boost.Build-testing and it provides a way of grouping together a set of 
tests under a virtual target name. Hmmm... Then again, perhaps I should 
provide my own virtual name for the headers tests as well. I'll look 
into this.

Thanks for reporting!

In the meantime the workaround is to skip the test-suite and directly use,

     import headers ;
     headers dirs ;

> Not sure about the the weird escaped values for the test
> objects/executables/etc. looks odd.
> 
> MkDir1 bin/directory%2finclude%2fsomeincludefile%2eh.test

Right. I also find these odd. The problem is I need to give each header 
test a unique name. By default this would be the filename minus path and 
file-extension which is prone to collisions. I sticked to this scheme 
only because it is simple and reversible, although other escaping 
mechanisms are possible. Another option would be to use a 
non-descriptive sequential naming scheme:

     header-1
     header-2
     ...

, possibly outputting the corresponding header paths to a separate file. 
I've tried both approaches locally.

Or maybe I can skip naming the tests... I'll look into this possibility, 
which would be tied to the fix for the issue above.

Thanks for your comments!

Best regards,

João