Testing framework discussion

I'd like to share a small project I did recently to add automated testing and code coverage to an old GitHub project. In this case the author had archived their project so I forked the project and added the testing capabilities and API extensions.

https://github.com/jrepp/vec/blob/master/.github/workflows/cmake.yml

These workflow actions can be added through the 'Actions' tab by selecting CMake. A matrix build can be configured which allows automating the matrix of the platform, compiler, and library combination.

You can see some sample output here: https://github.com/jrepp/vec/runs/5238299537?check_suite_focus=true

Using gcov + gcovr you get automated coverage analysis of your tests through https://about.codecov.io/. gcov is the standardized tool and gcovr is a nice python wrapper that automates a lot of the command line arguments and reporting.

In this case, I was upgrading an existing library that had a test case. The test macros were actually very simple and easy to use.

You can see the CMake configuration here: https://github.com/jrepp/vec/blob/bda7a5da6f1650f6cd4a6f43e73cbb3c30c70e74/CMakeLists.txt#L56

What I do for more complex projects C/C++ (like AprilTag) is that I create multiple CTest targets using uTest (a header-only testing framework) https://github.com/sheredom/utest.h

Pros: you get small executables, if your test crashes it's in an isolated executable and easier to isolate and reproduce Cons: slightly longer build times

With a test/ directory and a CMakeLists.txt file in that directory you can create multiple test executables using a macro like this (cribbed from an embedded network test suite I'm working on):

macro(network_test name)
    set(sources ${ARGN})
    set(test_name "test_${name}")
    message("configuring ${test_name} with sources ${sources}")

    # Use -Wall for clang and gcc.
    if(NOT CMAKE_CXX_FLAGS MATCHES "-Wall")
        set(CMAKE_CXX_FLAGS "${CMAKE_CXX_FLAGS} -Wall")
    endif(NOT CMAKE_CXX_FLAGS MATCHES "-Wall")

    # Use -Wextra for clang and gcc.
    if(NOT CMAKE_CXX_FLAGS MATCHES "-Wextra")
        set(CMAKE_CXX_FLAGS "${CMAKE_CXX_FLAGS} -Wextra")
    endif(NOT CMAKE_CXX_FLAGS MATCHES "-Wextra")

    # Use -Werror for clang and gcc.
    if(NOT CMAKE_CXX_FLAGS MATCHES "-Werror")
        set(CMAKE_CXX_FLAGS "${CMAKE_CXX_FLAGS} -Werror")
    endif(NOT CMAKE_CXX_FLAGS MATCHES "-Werror")

    # Disable C++ exceptions.
    string(REGEX REPLACE "-fexceptions" "" CMAKE_CXX_FLAGS "${CMAKE_CXX_FLAGS}")
    set(CMAKE_CXX_FLAGS "${CMAKE_CXX_FLAGS} -fno-exceptions")

    # Disable RTTI.
    string(REGEX REPLACE "-frtti" "" CMAKE_CXX_FLAGS "${CMAKE_CXX_FLAGS}")
    set(CMAKE_CXX_FLAGS "${CMAKE_CXX_FLAGS} -fno-rtti")

    add_executable(${test_name} ${sources})
    add_test(${name} ${test_name})
    target_link_libraries(${test_name} hal net proto mbedcrypto mbedtls mbedx509 llhttp nanolib Threads::Threads)
    target_include_directories(${test_name}
            PRIVATE
            ../../vendor/mbedtls/include
            ../../vendor/llhttp/include
            ../../vendor/nanomq/nanomq/include/
            ../../vendor/nanomq/nanomq/nanolib/include
            ../../vendor/nanomq/nng/)
endmacro()

network_test(mqtt test_mqtt.cpp test_common.cpp)
network_test(http test_http.cpp test_common.cpp)
...

There are some unique challenges to automated testing of AT. I'm excited to see where this effort leads.

AprilRobotics / apriltag

Testing framework discussion #217