Question

Full disclosure: this is for a school project. The project is in C++. They usually want us to use their lab computers, which are UNIX systems, which means that the makefile works fine on the lab comps. But, like most lab comps, they are pieces of crap. I’ve lost more than one project to their nonsense. But, that is neither here nor there.

As I said, I have this UNIX makefile. I don’t care about the compilation instructions; I will let msbuild handle that. What I do care about are the testing procedures at the end of the makefile. These are the tests (using another .cpp file) that my project must pass in order for it to be graded. Now, I would like to do this project in vs, but I am not sure how to convert the instructions from the UNIX makefile into something that msbuild can understand. Is there a way to add this to the xml file in vs? Should I use a post-build command line option to run these tests? What is my best option here? I included the relevant code from the makefile below. I know I can just run each test separately from the command line, but that would be excruciatingly time-consuming. Any advice, etc., would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

Note that I removed the compile instructions for the other files as they (I don’t think) are relevant to my question.
CODE:

test:
rm -f test_results
ListTemplateTest && \
    (echo "ListTemplateTest OK" >> test_results) || \
    (echo "ListTemplateTest Failed" >> test_results) && \
HashTableTemplateTest test1 && \
    (echo "HashTableTemplateTest test1  OK" >> test_results) || \
    (echo "HashTableTemplateTest test1  Failed" >> test_results) && \
HashTableTemplateTest test2 && \
    (echo "HashTableTemplateTest test2  OK" >> test_results) || \
    (echo "HashTableTemplateTest test2  Failed" >> test_results) && \
HashTableTemplateTest test3 && \
    (echo "HashTableTemplateTest test3  OK" >> test_results) || \
    (echo "HashTableTemplateTest test3  Failed" >> test_results) && \
HashTableTemplateTest test4 && \
    (echo "HashTableTemplateTest test4  OK" >> test_results) || \
    (echo "HashTableTemplateTest test4  Failed" >> test_results) && \
HashTableTemplateTest test5 && \
    (echo "HashTableTemplateTest test5  OK" >> test_results) || \
    (echo "HashTableTemplateTest test5  Failed" >> test_results) && \
HashTableTemplateTest test6 && \
    (echo "HashTableTemplateTest test6  OK" >> test_results) || \
    (echo "HashTableTemplateTest test6  Failed" >> test_results) && \
HashTableVoidTest test1 && \
    (echo "HashTableVoidTest test1  OK" >> test_results) || \
    (echo "HashTableVoidTest test1  Failed" >> test_results) && \
HashTableVoidTest test2 && \
    (echo "HashTableVoidTest test2  OK" >> test_results) || \
    (echo "HashTableVoidTest test2  Failed" >> test_results) && \
HashTableVoidTest test3 && \
    (echo "HashTableVoidTest test3  OK" >> test_results) || \
    (echo "HashTableVoidTest test3  Failed" >> test_results) && \
HashTableVoidTest test4 && \
    (echo "HashTableVoidTest test4  OK" >> test_results) || \
    (echo "HashTableVoidTest test4  Failed" >> test_results) && \
HashTableVoidTest test5 && \
    (echo "HashTableVoidTest test5  OK" >> test_results) || \
    (echo "HashTableVoidTest test5  Failed" >> test_results) && \
HashTableVoidTest test6 && \
    (echo "HashTableVoidTest test6  OK" >> test_results) || \
    (echo "HashTableVoidTest test6  Failed" >> test_results) && \
(wcVoid greetings.txt | sort > out1) && (wcVoidExample greetings.txt | sort > out2) && \
    diff out1 out2 && \
    (echo "wcVoid greetings.txt OK" >> test_results) || \
    (echo "wcVoid greetings.txt Failed" >> test_results) && \
(wcTemplate greetings.txt | sort > out1) && (wcVoidExample greetings.txt | sort > out2) && \
    diff out1 out2 && \
    (echo "wcTemplate greetings.txt OK" >> test_results) || \
    (echo "wcTemplate greetings.txt Failed" >> test_results) && \
echo && \
echo ------ Test Results ----- && \
cat test_results 

clean:
rm -f core *.o HashTableTemplateTest HashTableVoidTest ListTemplateTest \
wcVoid wcTemplate out1 out2 test_results

Answer 1

First of all, change it to a DOS batch file.

test:
del /Q /F test_results

ListTemplateTest 
if NOT ERRORLEVEL 1
    echo "ListTemplateTest OK" >> test_results
if ERRORLEVEL 1
    echo "ListTemplateTest Failed" >> test_results

HashTableTemplateTest test1
if NOT ERRORLEVEL 1
    echo "HashTableTemplateTest test1  OK" >> test_results
if ERRORLEVEL 1
    echo "HashTableTemplateTest test1  Failed" >> test_results

etc ...

Now, in Visual Studio

• Right click on the project name
• Select “Properties” from the menu.
• In the property tree select
  • Configuration Properties
    • Build Events
      • Post-Build Event
• Put your batch file in as the “Command Line”

That should do it.