[Qt-creator] Unit testing private parts of shared libraries

[Konstantin Tokarev]

16.10.2017, 20:04, "Elvis Stansvik" <elvstone at gmail.com>:
> 2017-10-16 18:57 GMT+02:00 Elvis Stansvik <elvstone at gmail.com>:
>>  Hi all,
>>
>>  (Posting this as a new thread instead of necroposting to my old thread
>>  about the design of Qt Creator [1], which did end with some
>>  discussions about testing.)
>>
>>  I'm working on some tests for my own application, and started thinking
>>  about unit testing of private parts of shared libraries (think the
>>  _p.h/_p.cpp parts). Such parts are normally not exported AFAIK (in the
>>  visibility attribute sense). This becomes a problem if you link the
>>  unit tests dynamically against the code under test, as the tests won't
>>  be able to see those symbols.
>>
>>  So it seems to me there is only a few options:
>>
>>   1. Exporting the private parts after all,
>>   2. Adding the sources of the code under test to the unit tests,
>>   3. ?
>>
>>  1 is not really good, as you export more than you really have to. But

<here should be some obscene joke about exporting them to unfamiliar people>

>
> And build times go up as well of course.
>
> Elvis
>
>>  I guess it's not so bad after all, since you a) have to include _p.h
>>  to get at them and b) they're normally called PrivateSomething or
>>  InternalSomething, both of which should tell you you're doing
>>  something bad. 2 is not really good either though, as you really want
>>  to test the code as shipped, not as compiled as part of your test.
>>
>>  I had a quick look at Qt Creator because I know you folks are seasoned
>>  developers, and it looks like you've gone with option 1. For example,
>>  ExtensionSystem::Internal::PluginSpecPrivate is exported, and I guess
>>  the reason is you want to be able to unit test it?
>>
>>  I just wanted to ask in case you have any other ideas or better ways
>>  to let unit tests access things that are normally not exported?
>>
>>  Thanks in advance,
>>  Elvis
>>
>>  [1] http://lists.qt-project.org/pipermail/qt-creator/2017-September/006712.html
>
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-- 
Regards,
Konstantin