C++ unit testing framework [closed]

Question

I use the Boost Test framework for my C++ code but there are two problems with it that are probably common to all C++ test frameworks:

• There is no way to create automatic test stubs (by extracting public functions from selected classes for example).
• You cannot run a single test - you have to run the entire 'suite' of tests (unless you create lots of different test projects I guess).

Does anyone know of a better testing framework or am I forever to be jealous of the test tools available to Java/.NET developers?

Answer 1

I've just pushed my own framework, CATCH, out there. It's still under development but I believe it already surpasses most other frameworks. Different people have different criteria but I've tried to cover most ground without too many trade-offs. Take a look at my linked blog entry for a taster. My top five features are:

• Header only
• Auto registration of function and method based tests
• Decomposes standard C++ expressions into LHS and RHS (so you don't need a whole family of assert macros).
• Support for nested sections within a function based fixture
• Name tests using natural language - function/ method names are generated

It doesn't do generation of stubs - but that's a fairly specialised area. I think Isolator++ is the first tool to truly pull that off. Note that Mocking/ stubbing frameworks are usually independent of unit testing frameworks. CATCH works particularly well with mock objects as test state is not passed around by context.

It also has Objective-C bindings.

[update]

Just happened back across this answer of mine from a few years ago. Thanks for all the great comments! Obviously Catch has developed on a lot in that time. It now has support for BDD style testing (given/ when/ then), tags, now in a single header, and loads of internal improvements and refinements (e.g. richer command line, clear and expressive output etc). A more up-to-date blog post is here.

Answer 2

Take a look at the Google C++ Testing Framework.

It's used by Google for all of their in-house C++ projects, so it must be pretty good.

http://googletesting.blogspot.com/2008/07/announcing-new-google-c-testing.html

http://code.google.com/p/googletest