What's the way to access argc and argv inside of a test case in Google Test framework?

Question

I’m using Google Test to test my C++ project. Some cases, however, require access to argc and argv to load the required data.

In the main() method, when initializing, argc and argv are passed to the constructor of testing.

testing::InitGoogleTest(&argc, argv);

How can I access them later in a test?

TEST(SomeClass, myTest)
{
  // Here I would need to have access to argc and argv
}

Answer 1

I don't know google's test framework, so there might be a better way to do this, but this should do:

//---------------------------------------------
// some_header.h
extern int my_argc;
extern char** my_argv;
// eof
//---------------------------------------------

//---------------------------------------------
// main.cpp
int my_argc;
char** my_argv;

int main(int argc, char** argv)
{    
  ::testing::InitGoogleTest(&argc, argv);
  my_argc = argc;
  my_argv = argv;
  return RUN_ALL_TESTS();
}
// eof
//---------------------------------------------

//---------------------------------------------
// test.cpp
#include "some_header.h"

TEST(SomeClass, myTest)
{
  // Here you can access my_argc and my_argv
}
// eof
//---------------------------------------------

Globals aren't pretty, but when all you have is a test framework that won't allow you to tunnel some data from main() to whatever test functions you have, they do the job.

Answer 2

If running on Windows using Visual Studio, those are available in __argc and __argv.

Answer 3

The command line arguments to your test executable are for the test framework, not for your tests. With them, you set stuff like --gtest_output, --gtest_repeat or --gtest_filter. A test should first and foremost be reproducable, which it isn't if it is depending on someone using the "right" parameters.

What are you trying to achieve, anyway?