Dr. Dobb's Journal - February 2008 - (Page 68)

d02mila_p5ma 12/7/07 3:30 PM Page 68 State of the Art STATICALLY TESTING C++ CODE to be evaluated in a testing run. In the same logic, Loki and Boost static assertions are most useful while evaluated in a testing compilation. Listing One #include #include #include #include int main() { @LEGAL std::vector<std::complex > v; std::min(2, 3); @END @ILLEGAL std::vector<std::complex > v; sort(v.begin(), v.end()); @END @ILLEGAL std::min(2, 3.); @END @LEGAL int i; std::cout << i; std::vector vi; vi.push_back(3); vi.push_back(-2); vi.push_back(0); sort(vi.begin(), vi.end()); @END } But what is a testing compilation? It is a test consisting in compiling a test program written for the sole purpose of determining if the compilation is successful or not. Let’s call such a program, whose syntactic correctness is to be checked, a “static testing program.” Furthermore, let’s call a traditional program, surely syntactically correct, whose runtime correctness is to be checked, a “dynamic testing program.” A dynamic testing program contains a series of dynamic tests, each one of them declaring the result expected from the evaluation of an expression while running the program. Analogously, a static testing program contains a series of tests, each one of them declaring the result expected from the compilation of an expression; that is, whether the expression is syntactically correct (legal) or incorrect (illegal). The static testing consists in trying to compile each test and observe if any compilation error is output. A test is considered failed, meaning that an error in the library (or in the test) has been detected, if a code snippet declared as legal generates some compilation errors, or if a code snippet declared as illegal doesn’t generate any compilation errors. Conversely, a test is considered successful, meaning that the behavior has been the expected one, if a code snippet declared as legal doesn’t generate any compilation errors, or if a code snippet declared as illegal does generate some compilation errors. Need Scalable Infrastructure? Network.com provides Infrastructureas-a-Service for the most demanding compute applications. Get the white paper and get started today. www.network.com Sign up now and get 3 months of On-Demand Computing FREE!* *Up to 200 CPU-hrs. 68 Dr. Dobb’s Journal l www.ddj.com l February 2008 http://www.network.com http://www.network.com http://www.mcobject.com http://www.mcobject.com/enterprise http://www.mcobject.com http://www.ddj.com

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Dr. Dobb's Journal - February 2008

Dr. Dobb's Journal - February 2008 Contents Hmmmm Alia Vox Developer Diaries Developer’s Notebook South American Software Development Conversations Inside Visual Studio 2008 BibPort: Creating Bibliographic References Continuous LINQ The ZK Framework Static Testing C++ Code The Agile Edge Effective Concurrency Swaine’s Flames

Dr. Dobb's Journal - February 2008

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