What unit-testing framework should I use for Qt? [closed]

Answer 1

For Visual Studio test adapter tool support with the QtTest framework use this Visual Studio extension: https://visualstudiogallery.msdn.microsoft.com/cc1fcd27-4e58-4663-951f-fb02d9ff3653

Answer 2

I started off using QtTest for my app and very, very quickly started running into limitations with it. The two main problems were:

1) My tests run very fast - sufficiently quickly that the overhead of loading an executable, setting up a Q(Core)Application (if needed) etc often dwarfs the running time of the tests themselves! Linking each executable takes up a lot of time, too.

The overhead just kept on increasing as more and more classes were added, and it soon became a problem - one of the goals of unit tests are to have a safety net that runs so fast that it is not a burden at all, and this was rapidly becoming not the case. The solution is to glob multiple test suites into one executable, and while (as shown above) this is mostly do-able, it is not supported and has important limitations.

2) No fixture support - a deal-breaker for me.

So after a while, I switched to Google Test - it is a far more featureful and sophisticated unit testing framework (especially when used with Google Mock) and solves 1) and 2), and moreover, you can still easily use the handy QTestLib features such as QSignalSpy and simulation of GUI events, etc. It was a bit of a pain to switch, but thankfully the project had not advanced too far and many of the changes could be automated.

Personally, I will not be using QtTest over Google Test for future projects - if offers no real advantages that I can see, and has important drawbacks.

Answer 3

Why not using the unit-testing framework included in Qt? An example : QtTestLib Tutorial.

Answer 4

To append to Joe's answer.

Here's a small header I use (testrunner.h), containing an utility class spawning an event loop (which is, for example, needed to test queued signal-slot connections and databases) and "running" QTest-compatible classes:

#ifndef TESTRUNNER_H
#define TESTRUNNER_H

#include <QList>
#include <QTimer>
#include <QCoreApplication>
#include <QtTest>

class TestRunner: public QObject
{
    Q_OBJECT

public:
    TestRunner()
        : m_overallResult(0)
    {}

    void addTest(QObject * test) {
        test->setParent(this);
        m_tests.append(test);
    }

    bool runTests() {
        int argc =0;
        char * argv[] = {0};
        QCoreApplication app(argc, argv);
        QTimer::singleShot(0, this, SLOT(run()) );
        app.exec();

        return m_overallResult == 0;
    }
private slots:
    void run() {
        doRunTests();
        QCoreApplication::instance()->quit();
    }
private:
    void doRunTests() {
        foreach (QObject * test, m_tests) {
            m_overallResult|= QTest::qExec(test);
        }
    }

    QList<QObject *> m_tests;
    int m_overallResult;
};

#endif // TESTRUNNER_H

Use it like this:

#include "testrunner.h"
#include "..." // header for your QTest compatible class here

#include <QDebug>

int main() {
    TestRunner testRunner;
    testRunner.addTest(new ...()); //your QTest compatible class here

    qDebug() << "Overall result: " << (testRunner.runTests()?"PASS":"FAIL");

    return 0;
}

Answer 5

If you are using Qt, I would recommend using QtTest, because is has facilities to test the UI and is simple to use.

If you use QtCore, you can probably do without STL. I frequently find the Qt classes easier to use than the STL counterparts.