Re: [Boost-build] testing rules docs

From: Peter (pjfoley_at_[hidden])
Date: 2007-01-06 23:42:50

Volodya,

Could you please let me know where in the source tree the testing.html file
is?  I would like to update some parts of it and submit it.

I have tried searching through the tools/build directory but have not had
much luck.

Some questions on the document:

1.	Your testing page states that the simplest way to implement
unit-test's is with the "unit-test" rule.  Yet when I look in the
testing.jam file I see:

(Lines 23 and 24)
#  For historical reason, a 'unit-test' rule is available which
#  has the same syntax as 'exe' and behaves just like 'run'.

(Note:  that the above lines get printed out when you do bjam --help
testing)

Further down (lines 257 to 261) I see that it states that the unit-test rule
was left in because it is more user-friendly.  This was because of this post
to the mail list: http://tinyurl.com/yxhrqd

It might be worthwhile to state the pro's and con's between the "unit-test"
and the run rule.

2.	I am probably doing something wrong but I could not work out how to
get the run rule to work.  You have provided an example for the "unit-test"
rule but not one for the "run" rule.

As I have stated I have been looking through some of the regression tests
and noticed that its usage is something like:

test-suite test_name
        :
        [ run mytest.cpp
                :
                :
                : # requirements
                        <include>$(BOOST_ROOT)
<library-path>$(BOOST_ROOT)/lib
        ]
        ;

Is this the correct usage?  Or is there another way you can call the "run"
rule?

3.	I am guessing there is probably a historical reason why this is the
case but why is the format of the "run" rule different to all the other test
rules (eg "compile", "compile-fail", "link" and "link-fail")?

The format of run is:

rule run ( sources + : args * : input-files * : requirements * : target-name
? : default-build * )

The format for the others is:

rule compile ( sources : requirements * : target-name ? )

This is non-intuitive I was expecting to be able to swap from compile to run
while I was testing what they could do.

Also if you look here: http://tinyurl.com/skhpq it seems to suggest that
this is the commonly expected syntax.

I am guessing it is to late to change it but would it be possible to change
the "run" rule to something like:

rule run ( sources + : requirements * : target-name : args * : input-files *
? : default-build * )

4.	This is more a minor thing and is probably expected knowledge for
using bjam but what exactly does the "helpers" (last word prior to the
semi-colon) mean in this line:

unit-test helpers_test : helpers_test.cpp helpers ;

Is it another source file or executable?

Thanks,

Peter.