Re: [Boost-build] Future development

From: Rene Rivera (grafikrobot_at_[hidden])
Date: 2007-10-07 22:37:26

David Abrahams wrote:
> on Sun Oct 07 2007, Larry Evans <cppljevans-AT-cox-internet.com> wrote:
> 
>> On 10/06/07 19:08, Douglas Gregor wrote:
>> [snip]
>>> Okay. One could certainly make the executables for some tests  
>>> dependent on the executables of other tests, so if the type_traits  
>>> tests fail to build then one doesn't build the tests for other  
>>> libraries that depend on type_traits.
>>>
>>> I don't think we could make chain tests based on whether a test  
>>> *executes* correctly.
>>>
>> redflag!
> 
> I'm not alarmed.  It means some tests may attempt to run needlessly,
> but we'll still get all the results we need.  
> 
>> I think this is important to have.  I actually had such a need
>> before:
>>
>> http://article.gmane.org/gmane.comp.lib.boost.build/6301
>>
>> I'd think it would be useful because, in general, the higher
>> level classes or objects in a library depend on the correct
>> functioning of lower level parts of the library or other
>> libraries.  Obviously it would be useless to run tests
>> for the higher level parts if the lower level parts
>> didn't work correctly. ( Hopefully the adjectives "higher level"
>> and "lower level" are clear, but if not, I could try and
>> define them or give examples. )  I'm surprised the topic
>> hasn't come up more often.
> 
> I'm not aware of any Boost library that actually creates such
> dependencies among its tests, are you?

For the longest time we had the problem that the Serialization library 
would get intermittent failures. The problem was that many of the tests 
relied on a particular ordering. The "load" tests needed to run after 
the "save" tests. Then at one point I made some rather ridiculous 
kludges to BBv1 to order the tests correctly. And now with BBv2 all 
Robert has to do is add a <dependency>save_test on the load tests and it 
works swimmingly. So it's not a matter of running tests needlessly. It's 
a matter reliable testing... again.

-- 
-- Grafik - Don't Assume Anything
-- Redshift Software, Inc. - http://redshift-software.com
-- rrivera/acm.org - grafik/redshift-software.com
-- 102708583/icq - grafikrobot/aim - grafikrobot/yahoo