Boost test does not init_unit_test_suite - c++

Question

I run this piece of code
#define BOOST_TEST_MAIN
#define BOOST_TEST_DYN_LINK
#include <boost/test/unit_test.hpp>
#include <boost/test/unit_test_log.hpp>
#include <boost/filesystem/fstream.hpp>
#include <iostream>
using namespace boost::unit_test;
using namespace std;
void TestFoo()
{
BOOST_CHECK(0==0);
}
test_suite* init_unit_test_suite( int argc, char* argv[] )
{
std::cout << "Enter init_unit_test_suite" << endl;
boost::unit_test::test_suite* master_test_suite =
BOOST_TEST_SUITE( "MasterTestSuite" );
master_test_suite->add(BOOST_TEST_CASE(&TestFoo));
return master_test_suite;
}
But at runtime it says
Test setup error: test tree is empty
Why does it not run the init_unit_test_suite function?

Answer 1

Did you actually dynamically link against the boost_unit_test framework library? Furthermore, the combination of manual test registration and the definition of BOOST_TEST_MAIN does not work. The dynamic library requires slightly different initialization routines.
The easiest way to avoid this hurdle is to use automatic test registration
#define BOOST_TEST_MAIN
#define BOOST_TEST_DYN_LINK
#include <boost/test/unit_test.hpp>
#include <boost/test/unit_test_log.hpp>
#include <boost/filesystem/fstream.hpp>
#include <iostream>
using namespace boost::unit_test;
using namespace std;
BOOST_AUTO_TEST_SUITE(MasterSuite)
BOOST_AUTO_TEST_CASE(TestFoo)
{
BOOST_CHECK(0==0);
}
BOOST_AUTO_TEST_SUITE_END()
This is more robust and scales much better when you add more and more tests.

Answer 2

I had exactly the same issue. Besides switching to automatic test registration, as suggested previously, you can also use static linking, i.e. by replacing
#define BOOST_TEST_DYN_LINK
with
#define BOOST_TEST_STATIC_LINK
This was suggested at the boost mailing list:
The easiest way to fix this is to [...] link with static library.
Dynamic library init API is slightly different since 1.34.1 and this is the
cause of the error you see. init_unit_test_suite function is not called in this
case.