Change Assert to AssertThrow in the tests.

[Rombur]

This fixes #598 It's not perfect but it's much better than what we had. I've run the testsuite and it's seems to work (http://cdash.kyomu.43-1.org/buildSummary.php?buildid=5031the warnings are due to the version of openmpi, I'm using).

[bangerth]

Before we do this, I'd like to share an observation I mad the other day. If you run into a testcase that uses AssertThrow or throws an exception directly, then right now you simply end up with a testcase that silently aborts. It will return a nonzero error code, but the exception is not printed on the screen. So, if we change Assert to AssertThrow everywhere, we will have to learn to deal with testcases that look like the run through just fine when you call them by hand on the command line, but that do not in fact. They're also much more awkward to debug since the debugger no longer just stops at the site of the error :-(

[Rombur]

I can go back and add try and catch in all the tests. If I can catch all the exceptions at once it will be easy. I could also just create a new Assert that also works in release mode.

[tamiko]

Please give me half a day to think about this. :-)

@bangerth: This is a bit surprising. A test should set abort_on_exception to false which implies that all Assert are also thrown (exception.cc:336). Or what am I missing?

[bangerth]

@tamiko : Only a few tests actually set abort_on_exception to false. The vast majority do actually abort the program and print the error message.

[bangerth]

We could also try to investigate why this piece in exceptions.cc doesn't seem to work:

// Newer versions of gcc have a very nice feature: you can set a verbose
// terminate handler, that not only aborts a program when an exception is
// thrown and not caught somewhere, but before aborting it prints that an
// exception has been thrown, and possibly what the std::exception::what()
// function has to say. Since many people run into the trap of not having a
// catch clause in main(), they wonder where that abort may be coming from.
// The terminate handler then at least says what is missing in their
// program.
#ifdef DEAL_II_HAVE_VERBOSE_TERMINATE
namespace __gnu_cxx
{
  extern void __verbose_terminate_handler ();
}

namespace
{
  struct preload_terminate_dummy
  {
    preload_terminate_dummy()
    {
      std::set_terminate(__gnu_cxx::__verbose_terminate_handler);
    }
  };

  static preload_terminate_dummy dummy;
}
#endif

[tjhei]

right now you simply end up with a testcase that silently aborts

This is because we are not writing cout/cerr into the test output file, right? If I run a test with ctest -V I can see exception information on the screen with Assert and AssertThrow.

[bangerth]

Uh, maybe I misremember? I had a case where an exception was thrown via throw "error text" and nothing was shown on the screen. If you have AssertThrow instead of throw, you do get text on the screen? In that case, I'm retracting my objections.

[tjhei]

If I do throw "bla" I get

    terminate called after throwing an instance of 'char const*'
    Aborted (core dumped)

on screen. If I use Assert or AssertThrow I get a nice exception msg. Of course neither of these is part of the test output.

[tamiko]

This is because we are not writing cout/cerr into the test output file, right?

Exactly - we're not doing this at the moment.