How do you specify that an exception should be expected using Boost.Test?

Question

I have a Boost unit test case which causes the object under test to throw an exception (that's the test, to cause an exception). How do I specify in the test to expect that particular exception.

I can specify that the test should have a certain number of failures by using BOOST_AUTO_TEST_CASE_EXPECTED_FAILURES but that seems rather unspecific. I want to be able to say at a specific point in the test that an exception should be thrown and that it should not be counted as a failure.

Answer 1

Doesn't this work?

BOOST_CHECK_THROW (expression, an_exception_type);

That should cause the test to pass if the expression throws the given exception type or fail otherwise. If you need a different severity than 'CHECK', you could also use BOOST_WARN_THROW() or BOOST_REQUIRE_THROW() instead. See the documentation

Answer 2

You can also use BOOST_CHECK_EXCEPTION, which allows you to specify test function which validates your exception.