[Qt-creator] Unit testing private parts of shared libraries
Elvis Stansvik
elvstone at gmail.com
Mon Oct 16 19:38:09 CEST 2017
2017-10-16 19:21 GMT+02:00 Konstantin Tokarev <annulen at yandex.ru>:
>
>
> 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>
:D
Elvis
>
>>
>> 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
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