Eclipse Juno has landed with unit testing support for C++

Hi, today I'd like to share a wonderful news with you - a C++ IDE - eclipse CDT version 8.1 (the one included in eclipse Juno that has just landed few days ago) finally includes support for unit testing (which, by the way, JDT had for ages, but nevermind)!

EDIT: It looks like Unit Testing support is not in the default package of eclipse C++ IDE and you have to install it separately from the eclipse update site. See comments.

The good news

CDT 8.1 unit testing supports the following frameworks:

1. Boost Test Runner
2. Google Test Runner
3. Qt Tests Runner

A quick screenshot:

First, you have to enable C++ Unit Testing view:

The main screen of the feature should be shown:

Note that I highlighted one of the buttons in red. This button is "one click run" - it builds the project and runs all the tests - something I've been missing for a long time in C++ world.

Let's give it a try

Now, let's go through a quick tutorial on how to use the feature. I'm going to use Google Test as my unit testing framework and HippoMocks as my mocking framework, so if you don't know at least one of these, it's a good opportunity to learn a bit about them (by observation, since I'm not going to explain today how they work). Also, I'll use C++11 compiler, mainly for the auto keyword. Ok, let's go! For this example, I used:

1. Ubuntu GNU/Linux
2. gcc in version at least 4.6 (on Ubuntu you can just install build-essentials package)
3. google test framework installed (note that on Ubuntu you have to rebuild it from source!)
4. The latest version of Hippo Mocks framework

Set up a new project

Just create a new C++ empty project and add a new source file. Add the following flag to the gcc compiler: -std=c++0x (it will let you use C++11 features) and the following libraries to the linker:

1. gtest_main
2. gtest
3. pthread

Write the code

We'll use the classic example of copying a file from source to destination. Just paste the following code inside the main file (note that there's no main() function - this is deliberate, as gtest_main.a linked library will provide one for us. Also note that the code shown below isn't good style C++ in terms of header-source separation and namespace using - let's leave it for now, ok? ;-)).

#include <gtest/gtest.h>
#include "hippomocks.h"
using namespace std;

class File
{
};

class Source
{
public:
  virtual File* getData() = 0;
};

class Destination
{
public:
  virtual void write(File* data) = 0;
};

class CopyOperation
{
public:
  void Perform(
    Source* source,
    Destination* destination)
  {
    destination->write(source->getData());
  }
};

TEST(CopyOperationSpecification,
    ShouldCopyFileFromSourceToDestination)
{
  MockRepository mocks;
  auto source = mocks.InterfaceMock<Source>();
  auto destination = mocks.InterfaceMock<Destination>();
  auto file = mocks.Mock<File>();
  CopyOperation copy;

  mocks.ExpectCall(source, Source::getData).Return(file);
  mocks.ExpectCall(destination, Destination::write).With(file);

  copy.Perform(source, destination);
}

Create new run configuration and execute it

Running this example in CDT unit test runner requires you to create a new Run Configuration. Just right-click on the project, select Run As->Run Configurations and double click C++ Unit. On the C/C++ Testing tab, select Google Test Runner from the dropdown list and click Run. If everything goes well, you should see the following screen:

Summary

The unit test runner is a feature I was waiting for a long time and I'm glad to have it, with support for three popular unit testing frameworks. Good job, CDT developers!

That's it. In my next post, I'll be going back to C# and dealing with constructor parameter maintenance. Stay tuned!