Re: [Boost-users] Boost Test usage

From: Matt Schuckmann (matt_at_[hidden])
Date: 2006-07-14 14:16:16

Gennadiy Rozental wrote:
> "Matt Schuckmann" <matt_at_[hidden]> wrote in message 
> news:44B6DA44.8020305_at_schuckmannacres.com...
>> I've been looking into using the boost test library to start testing
>> some of our code and it looks pretty good. I've gone through the
>> documentation and several of the examples and there are a couple of
>> things I don't really get
> 
> So I  gather you are using boost 1.33.1, right?

Actually our production code uses boost 1.32.0 and that's what I'm 
testing out right now. I've downloaded 1.33.1 I can probably use 1.33.1 
for the test library without to much trouble if it's worth it. Is it 
worth it it?

> 
>> I don't see how the test_suite class lets you create do anything special
>> with regards to building multi-level tests, none of the examples really
>> show multilevel test hierarchy and how it really helps me.
> 
> There is a unit_test_example3 that builds multilevel hierarhy.

IMO Example 3 doesn't really show building a multilevel hierarchy it 
just shows how to derive from test_suite and add that to the master 
test_suite. Yes you could create multiple test_suites and add them 
together in interesting ways but what does that buy you? is it worth it?
You must have had a reason for implementing it.

> 
>> It looks like
>> it's really just a way of using a class to group test functions instead
>> of a series of free functions, am I missing something here?
> 
> test_suite is subclass of test_case. You could use method "add" to build 
> hierahies.
> 
>> I really expected more from a feature like this, I'm thinking of things 
>> like
>>    Command line control over which test suites to run, I mean you name
>> the test suites but you don't appear to do anything with that name
> 
> Run by name is planned to be implemented in 1.35
> 
>>    Reporting success and failure grouped by test suite
> 
> You could use --report_level=detailed for that
> 

Now that I see the detailed report level I see some use for hierarchy's, 
maybe the documentation should mention this and provide some example 
output.

It took me a while to find the command line documentation you might 
consider making it stand out more in the documentation and maybe even 
add a standard "-h --help" option so that the test executables are self 
documenting, if your using boost::program_options this is pretty easy.

Thanks for quick feedback I'll see what I can do. I really hate creating 
a bunch of executables (especially in MS .NET 2003) but I also don't 
really want to always run all my tests I'll watch for version 1.35.

Thanks
Matt S.