[Boost-users] [Boost.Test] Using debuggers

From: Florian Winter (fw_at_[hidden])
Date: 2008-08-05 11:13:52

When a debug version of a unit test application using Boost.Test crashes 
on Windows, no popup appears that asks for attaching the debugger. 
Instead, the process prints a stack dump to standard output and then 
exits normally. Attaching the debugger before the process crashes does 
not help.

Although this is helpful when running tests automatically with no user 
interaction, it makes it very hard to manually debug unit tests that 
have crashed.

According to the Boost.Test documentation, it is possible to pass 
framework parameters to Boost. In particular, there is a "catch system 
errors" parameter, which looks like it should be able to turn off this 
behavior (please correct me if I am wrong).

http://www.boost.org/doc/libs/1_35_0/libs/test/doc/components/utf/parameters/index.html
http://www.boost.org/doc/libs/1_35_0/libs/test/doc/components/utf/parameters/catch_system_errors.html

We tried the following (on Windows) and then ran a test case which 
caused an access violation:

set BOOST_TEST_CATCH_SYSTEM_ERRORS=no
echo %BOOST_TEST_CATCH_SYSTEM_ERRORS

The process still exited normally after printing a stack dump. We also 
tried using a command-line option:

<TEST_APPLICATION> --catch_system_errors=no

Same result as above.

Is this intentional?
Is there any way to prevent Boost.Test from catching system errors such 
as access violations (on Windows) and signals (on Linux and similar 
platforms) so that conventional debuggers can be used?

Best regards,

Florian