Parser will fail if the name of the test is split over several lines in the test file.

[vaeng]

[ahans]

I think we can fix the multiline issue by replacing the find with something more powerful like a regex. However, I think it'd be better to use something that actually understands C++. I have used libclang a couple of years ago for some C++ parsing and it worked fairly well. I would give it a shot here, unless it's a dependency you wouldn't want to introduce.

Also, I wonder why this is even written in C++? I personally would prefer Python for tasks like this. But I don't know enough about the test runner yet to say if a rewrite in Python would make sense.

[siebenschlaefer]

I'm fine with any tech-stack that gives us a working solution and is easy to maintain.
But the larger the Docker image gets the more Exercism has to pay.
I think that's why @vaeng tried to keep it as small as possible.

[vaeng]

Siebenschläfer is right, the initial thought was to get rid of the Pythond dependency to reduce the footprint of the test-runner. Every gig is about 1k€ per year.

Also, the general directive from Erik was that the runner should be written in the same language as the track.

I am very happy to see a more versatile solution. If you get some hold of a nice ast parser for Cpp, we can use it to make the represented a lot better and even implement an analyzer.

[ahans]

Siebenschläfer is right, the initial thought was to get rid of the Pythond dependency to reduce the footprint of the test-runner.

Turns out Python is already part of the image:

cpp-test-runner git:main  
❯ docker run -ti --rm --entrypoint python exercism/test-runner
Python 3.11.8 (main, Feb 19 2024, 22:58:08) [GCC 12.2.1 20220924] on linux
Type "help", "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information.
>>> 

Looks like it's pulled by boost-dev through boost-python.

Also, the general directive from Erik was that the runner should be written in the same language as the track.

How hard of a requirement is that? I find it goes a bit against the "right tool for the job" best practice.

I am very happy to see a more versatile solution. If you get some hold of a nice ast parser for Cpp, we can use it to make the represented a lot better and even implement an analyzer.

I think libclang would be a good fit here. It would also not increase the size of the image, since it would only be a build-time requirement. The final executable would be a few kilobytes larger, but that'd be it.

[vaeng]

It's not a hard requirement.

[ahans]

How much of a requirement is boost? I know that at least date_time is used in one exercise. Anything else? Are there many implementations by students that rely on other boost libraries? If image size is really a concern, we could probably shave off 200 MB by manually installing only what we need.

[vaeng]

I'd say it's required that all existing student solutions are still working after changes in the test runner. So I would give the boost lib a hard yes for requirements.