Unit test accessing private variables

Question

I have a unit test class Tester; I want it to access private fields of a Working class.

class Working {
    // ...
    private:
            


        

Answer 1

Generally, your unit tests should not evaluate private variables. Write your tests to the interface, not the implementation.

If you really need to check that a private variable has a particular characteristic, consider using assert() rather than trying to write a unit test for it.

A longer answer (written for C# rather than C++, but the same principles apply) is at https://stackoverflow.com/a/1093481/436641.