Cpp Unit Code Smell

The exercise ConsiderationsForAndComparisonOfCeePlusPlusTestFrameworks helped me understand what I did not like about CppUnit.

First, I must admit that CppUnit has greatly improved over the last few years. It used to require far more redundant typing than it does now. Nevertheless, I think it still has problems.

Mainly, CppUnit requires redundant typing. A test case must be defined as a fixture in a method, and then linked into a suite. It does not have a TestCollector script.

CppUnit has been extended with macros that reduce some, but not all, of this redundant typing. However, these macros are non-syntactic C++ macros, a code smell in and of themselves.

I think the fundamental problem is that CppUnit structures test cases as methods of a fixture, and then binds the method to create an independent test case object.

     class ComplexNumberTest ...
         void testEquality() { ...
     };

     CppUnit::TestCaller?<ComplexNumberTest> 
test( "testEquality",
&ComplexNumberTest::testEquality );

This requires redundant typing that cannot be completely hidden by macros, and which is hard to handle in simplistic TestCollector scripts that do not understand C++, e.g. that work line by line.

I think it is semantically equivalent, and much more conducive to simple TestCollector scripts, to express test cases as void functions or classes with a test() method, where the test fixture is inherited by the test case.

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It could also use VC++ itself as the test runner. See VisualCeePlusPlus.

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See StarUnitAutoSuite.

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CategoryCpp CategoryTesting