Boost unit test dynamic link on Ubuntu

I am trying to create a unit test using Boost unit test. I would like to dynamically link test suite libraries with an auto-generated test unit that Boost provides. Here's the basic construction I used:

test_main.cpp:

#define BOOST_TEST_DYN_LINK
#define BOOST_TEST_MAIN

#include <boost/test/unit_test.hpp>

      

        
        
        
      

    

lib_case.cpp:

#define BOOST_TEST_DYN_LINK
#include <boost/test/unit_test.hpp>


BOOST_AUTO_TEST_SUITE( test_lib )

BOOST_AUTO_TEST_CASE( test_lib_case ) {
    BOOST_ASSERT(true);
}
BOOST_AUTO_TEST_SUITE_END()

      

        
        
        
      

    

Makefile:

    all: unittest unittest2 unittest3

    lib_case.o: lib_case.cpp
        g++ -g -c -Wall -fPIC lib_case.cpp -o lib_case.o

    libcase.so: lib_case.o
        g++ -shared -Wl,-soname,libcase.so -o libcase.so lib_case.o

    unittest: libcase.so
        g++ -o unittest test_main.cpp -L. -lcase -lboost_unit_test_framework

    unittest2: test_main.cpp lib_case.cpp
        g++ -o unittest2 test_main.cpp lib_case.cpp -lboost_unit_test_framework

    unittest3: lib_case.o
        g++ -o unittest3 test_main.cpp lib_case.o -lboost_unit_test_framework

      

        
        
        
      

    

Testing on Ubuntu 14.04, all binaries compile and link without error.

'unittest' fails to execute package 'test_lib', claiming that the installation failed, but 'unittest2' and 'unittest3' will succeed:

$./unittest
Test setup error: test tree is empty
$./unittest2
Running 1 test case...
*** No errors detected
$./unittest3
Running 1 test case...
*** No errors detected

      

        
        
        
      

    

Now for the headache: all unittest * are running the test suite on Fedora 20.

When looking through the dependency lists for "unittest" I see that "libcase.so" is not listed in Ubuntu version but is in Fedora 20 version. I have been playing around with re-ordering dependencies using absolute paths for SO and modifying Boost versions (1.54 and 1.55 ). Nothing succeeded.

Any ideas on what might be preventing libbra.so from linking from Ubuntu 14.04 but not Fedora 20? Am I missing some magic compiler / linker flag?

Update:

The comment and answer helped narrow down the problem a little more. If I understand correctly the dynamic linked UTF implementation of Boost (since at least 1.54 / 55) then the framework provides a singleton test case dispatcher. Each test will be automatically registered with the construction manager.

I think the problem is that for some reason the Ubuntu linking "optimizes" the static global used for the singleton manager instance when linking the library to the binary. Basically, it does not bind two singleton instances, despite using the same global static variable. He views them as two separate instances.

I followed the steps outlined in Multiple Singleton Instances in Shared Libraries on Linux to check out the library and binaries. Unlike my case, the -rdynamic parameter does not solve my problem.

I did some more tests and found it interesting. If you preload the libcase.so object, unittest works on Ubuntu. Although libcase.so doesn't show up in ldd. I feel like this was expected because the singleton for the manager was "preloaded", when unittest runs it will bind to it.

$ LD_PRELOAD=/absolute/path/to/libcase.so ./unittest
Running 1 test case ...

      

        
        
        
      

    

Still not sure why Ubuntu doesn't want to bundle as expected / intended where Fedora is doing. Reading this tutorial (specifically the Comparison to Microsoft DLL section) makes me think Ubuntu follows the Windows binding pattern.