Boost.Tests: Specify function name instead of main

Question

I am working on a project using the cmake build system. By default CMake has a nice framework for generating a single executable from a set of C/C++ code. The cmake function is called create_test_sourcelist. What it does is generate a C/C++ dispatcher with a single main entry point which will call other C/C++ code.

Therefore I have a bunch of C/C++ files with a function signature such as: int TestFunctionality1(int argc, char *argv[]), which I'd like to keep as-is, unless of course it means even more work.

How can I keep this system in place and start using BOOST_CHECK ? I could not figure out how to specify the actual main entry point is not called int main(int argc, char *argv[]).

My goal is have a framework for integration with Jenkins, since the project already uses Boost, I believe this should be doable without re-writing the existing CMake test suite and changing all tests into independent main function.

Answer 1

Unfortunately, it seems there is no straightforward and clean way to do that.

From one side the only useful function of create_test_sourcelist is to generate a test driver: a (stupid pretty simple, naive and with lack of abilities to hack/extend) C/C++ translation unit based on ${cmake-prefix}/share/cmake/Templates/TestDriver.cxx.in (and there is no way to select some other template).

From other side, Boost UTF offers its own test runner (which is equal to test driver in CMake's terminology), but in any variant (static, dynamic, single-header) it contains definition for main() some way or another (even in case of external test runner).

…so you end up with two main() functions and no ability to choose a single one.

Digging a little into sources of create_test_sourcelist I've really wonder why are they implemented it as a command and not as ordinal (extern) cmake module — it doesn't do any special (which can't be implemented using CMake language). This command is really stupid — it doesn't check that required functions are really exists (you'll get compile errors if smth wrong). There are no ways for flexible customization of output source file at all. All that is does is stripping paths and extensions from a list of source files and substitute it to mentioned template using ordinal configure_file()…

So, personally I see no reason to use it at all. It is why I've done the same (but better ;) job in the module mentioned in the comment above.

If you are still want to use that command, generated test driver completely useless if you want to use Boost UTF. You need to provide your own initialization function anyway (and it is not main()), where you can manually register your test cases into a master test suite (or organize your tests into some more complex tree). In that case there is absolutely no reason to use create_test_sourcelist! All what you can get from it is a list of sources that needs to be given to add_executable()… but it is much more easy to do w/ set()… This command even can't help you w/ list of test functions (list of filenames w/o extension actually) to call (it used internally and not exported). Do you still want to use that command??