Note that other than the header-only approach and the traditional static or shared libraries, you can also create an ad-hoc static library by simply including the necessary .cpp files into exactly one translation unit of your executable. This works around the ABI problem but keeps the compile times and code size reasonably low. Note that Boost doesn't support this mode at the moment, but I think I'm going to implement this and also push it upstream soon. You can vote for me. ;)
Please have a look at the #include <boost/test/included/unit_test.hpp> Header. IIRC this does exactly what you are suggesting (therefore at least part of Boost supports it already). I personally find this mode quite comfortable. Yours, -- Dr. Martin Schulz (schulz@synopsys.com) Senior R&D Engineer Synopsys GmbH Karl-Hammerschmidt-Str. 34 D-85609 Dornach, Germany Munich office: +49 (89) 993-20203 Home office: +49 (721) 6099511 http://www.synopsys.com