Re: [Cppunit-devel] Improving CppUnit portability

[Baptiste L. <gai...@fr...>]

----- Original Message -----
From: "Michel Armin" <Arm...@si...>
To: <cpp...@li...>
Sent: Thursday, July 11, 2002 9:03 AM
Subject: RE: [Cppunit-devel] Improving CppUnit portability


> Hi.
>
> I am not an expert in the field of portability, but I don't like the idea
to
> get rid of the C++ style casts (for instance). These kinds of casts
> (static_cast, dynamic_cast, reinterprete_cast) are more safe with respect
to
> type safety and are - AFAIK - perfectly standarized C++ features. Cutting
> down on C++ features would ulitmately end up in the question whether we'd
> like to implement CppUnit with C++ or with just C.

While I would agree with this for a 'real' project, CppUnit uses only 5
const_cast (to implement constness semantic). Hardly a reason for not
supporting some compilers...

> Coming from a Java playground, I also do not like the idea of introducing
> too many "MACRO-magics", because they just tend to complicate things, for
> example when it comes down to refactoring issues.

I turned down from the CPPUNIT_STD macro (see other post). Remaining macros
will not disturb things that much.

> I'd prefer, if we could concentrate more on getting rid of OS-specifics
than
> on compiler-specifics. Of course, compiler specifics are also a big issue,
> but I hope it will be sufficient, if we support the "more mature" C++
> implementations that already provide the usual common set of features of
> C++.

What are you refering to ? The only OS dependency that I'm aware of is the
DynamicLibraryManager class, which is already portable. The plug-in system
can be made optional if need be. Well, and some part of the build system
(see bug/support), but I can't do much about that.

This leave compiler stuff as the most important thing in the way. As I see
things, it should be possible to compile CppUnit on all the platforms
supported by STLPort which provides exception support and iostream. If they
can get the STL working, we surely can provide something as simple as
CppUnit.

CppUnit should not be the force that will make you choose/upgrade your
compiler. The more people can use CppUnit, the better. If you look hard
enough on the net, you will even find version of CppUnit where the STL where
completly removed. I don't believe we need to go that far (STLPort seems to
be available on a fair amount of platforms), but there is clearly a need...

Baptiste.

>
> Regards
>
> Armin