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I'm writing unit tests for my app, and now I've stumbled on a class in which I should test private methods. This could be result of poor design of particular class, but I must do it. Is there any way in Qt to call private methods, maybe using QMetaObject or something similar ?
For unit testing I am using QTestLib framework.
712
Unit Tests Should Only Test Public Methods The short answer is that you shouldn't test private methods directly, but only their effects on the public methods that call them. Unit tests are clients of the object under test, much like the other classes in the code that are dependent on the object.
So whether you are using JUnit or SuiteRunner, you have the same four basic approaches to testing private methods: Don't test private methods. Give the methods package access. Use a nested test class.
Strictly speaking, you should not be writing unit tests that directly test private methods. What you should be testing is the public contract that the class has with other objects; you should never directly test an object's internals.
The proper (read annoying) answer is that you should not be testing private methods, those are implementation details ;-).
OTOH -- have you thought about conditionally declaring them protected/private depending on whether you are in testing or no and then extending? I've used that to get me out of a similar pinch in the past.
#ifdef TESTING
// or maybe even public!
#define ACCESS protected
#else
#define ACCESS private
#endif
/* your class here */
class Foo {
ACCESS
int fooeyness;
}
// or better yet, place this in a different file!
#ifdef TESTING
/*
class which extends the tested class which has public accessors
*/
#endif
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