faq.html (14510B)
1 <!DOCTYPE html> 2 <html> 3 <title>faq</title> 4 <xmp theme="united" style="display:none;"> 5 6 ## FAQ 7 8 - [**How is doctest different from Catch?**](#how-is-doctest-different-from-catch) 9 - [**How is doctest different from Google Test?**](#how-is-doctest-different-from-google-test) 10 - [**How to get the best compile-time performance with the framework?**](#how-to-get-the-best-compile-time-performance-with-the-framework) 11 - [**Is doctest thread-aware?**](#is-doctest-thread-aware) 12 - [**Is mocking supported?**](#is-mocking-supported) 13 - [**Why are my tests in a static library not getting registered?**](#why-are-my-tests-in-a-static-library-not-getting-registered) 14 - [**Why is comparing C strings (```char*```) actually comparing pointers?**](#why-is-comparing-c-strings-char-actually-comparing-pointers) 15 - [**How to write tests in header-only libraries?**](#how-to-write-tests-in-header-only-libraries) 16 - [**Does the framework use exceptions?**](#does-the-framework-use-exceptions) 17 - [**Why do I get compiler errors in STL headers when including the doctest header?**](#why-do-i-get-compiler-errors-in-stl-headers-when-including-the-doctest-header) 18 - [**Can different versions of the framework be used within the same binary (executable/dll)?**](#can-different-versions-of-the-framework-be-used-within-the-same-binary-executabledll) 19 - [**Why is doctest using macros?**](#why-is-doctest-using-macros) 20 - [**How to use with multiple files?**](#how-to-use-with-multiple-files) 21 22 ### How is **doctest** different from Catch? 23 24 Pros of **doctest**: 25 26 - **doctest** is [**thread-safe**](faq.html#is-doctest-thread-aware) 27 - asserts can be used [**outside of a testing context**](assertions.html#using-asserts-out-of-a-testing-context) 28 - including the **doctest** header is [**over 20 times lighter**](benchmarks.html#cost-of-including-the-header) on compile times than that of [**Catch**](https://github.com/catchorg/Catch2) 29 - the asserts in **doctest** can be [**many times lighter**](benchmarks.html#cost-of-an-assertion-macro) on compile times than those of [**Catch**](https://github.com/catchorg/Catch2) 30 - **doctest** executes tests [**many times faster**](benchmarks.html#runtime-benchmarks) than [**Catch**](https://github.com/catchorg/Catch2) 31 - everything testing-related can be removed from the binary by defining the [**```DOCTEST_CONFIG_DISABLE```**](configuration.html#doctest_config_disable) identifier 32 - doesn't drag any headers when included (except for in the translation unit where the library gets implemented) 33 - 0 warnings even on the [**most aggressive**](../../scripts/cmake/common.cmake#L84) warning levels for MSVC/GCC/Clang 34 - per commit tested with 180+ builds on [**much more compilers**](features.html#extremely-portable) - and through valgrind/sanitizers/analyzers 35 - test cases can be written in headers - the framework will still register the tests only once - no duplicates 36 - binaries (exe/dll) can use the test runner of another binary - so tests end up in a single registry - [**example**](../../examples/executable_dll_and_plugin/) 37 38 Aside from everything mentioned so far doctest has some [**features**](features.html#other-features) (like [**test suites**](testcases.html#test-suites) and [**decorators**](testcases.html#decorators)) which [**Catch**](https://github.com/catchorg/Catch2) doesn't. 39 40 Missing stuff: 41 42 - matchers and generators 43 - micro benchmarking support - nonius is used in [**Catch**](https://github.com/catchorg/Catch2) 44 - other small stuff such as tags - can be easily emulated/migrated from - see below 45 46 But these things (and more!) are planned in the [**roadmap**](https://github.com/doctest/doctest/issues/600)! 47 48 **doctest** can be thought of as a very polished, light, stable and clean subset (or reimplementation) of [**Catch**](https://github.com/catchorg/Catch2) but this might change in the future as more features are added. 49 50 Also checkout [this table](https://github.com/martinmoene/catch-lest-other-comparison) that compares **doctest** / [**Catch**](https://github.com/catchorg/Catch2) / [**lest**](https://github.com/martinmoene/lest). 51 52 A quick and easy way to migrate most of your Catch tests to doctest is to change the ```TEST_CASE``` (if using tags) and ```SECTION``` macros as follows: 53 54 ``` 55 #include "path/to/doctest.h" 56 57 #define SECTION(name) DOCTEST_SUBCASE(name) 58 59 // only if tags are used: will concatenate them to the test name string literal 60 #undef TEST_CASE 61 #define TEST_CASE(name, tags) DOCTEST_TEST_CASE(tags " " name) 62 63 // catch exposes this by default outside of its namespace 64 using doctest::Approx; 65 ``` 66 67 ### How is **doctest** different from Google Test? 68 69 Here are a couple of differences: 70 71 - the main one is that only doctest from the C++ frameworks is usable next to your production code (speed of compilation, ability to remove the tests from the binary, ability to execute tests/code/both, ability to have tests in multiple shared objects and still a single registry for all of them) 72 - doctest is a single header - Google Test has to be built as a separate static library and linked against. 73 - doctest has the concept of [**Subcases**](https://github.com/doctest/doctest/blob/master/doc/markdown/tutorial.html#test-cases-and-subcases) which is a much cleaner way to share setup and teardown code between tests compared to fixtures and class inheritance - Google Test is quite verbose! 74 - doctest compiles faster and probably runs faster (although the runtime becomes an issue only when you have millions of asserts) 75 - doctest asserts are thread-safe even on Windows (Google Test uses pthreads so thread-safe asserts are available only on UNIX) 76 - doctest overall has a simpler API 77 78 but there are also some areas in which doctest is lacking: 79 80 - value-parameterized tests 81 - death tests (where you check if calling a certain function doesn’t simply throw but if it crashes the process) 82 - doctest has some integration with mocking libraries but Google Test works perfectly with Google Mock (although doctest should in theory work with it as well) 83 84 The areas where doctest is behind are planned for improvement in the future. There are many other smaller differences - it would be impractical to cover them all. 85 86 ### How to get the best compile-time performance with the framework? 87 88 The [**```DOCTEST_CONFIG_SUPER_FAST_ASSERTS```**](configuration.html#doctest_config_super_fast_asserts) config option yields the [**fastest possible**](benchmarks.html#cost-of-an-assertion-macro) compile times (up to 31-91%). Also the expression-decomposing template machinery can be skipped by using the [**binary**](assertions.html#binary-and-unary-asserts) asserts. 89 90 There are only 2 tiny drawbacks of using this config option: 91 92 - there is no ```try/catch``` block in each assert so if an expression is thrown the whole test case ends (but is still caught and reported). 93 - when an assert fails and a debugger is present - the framework will break inside a doctest function so the user will have to go 1 level up in the callstack to see where the actual assert is in the source code. 94 95 These 2 things can be considered negligible and totally worth it if you are dealing mainly with expressions unlikely to throw exceptions and all the tests usually pass (you don't need to navigate often to a failing assert with a debugger attached). 96 97 ### Is doctest thread-aware? 98 99 Most macros/functionality is safe to use in a multithreaded context: [**assertion**](assertions.html) and [**logging**](logging.html) macros can be safely used from multiple threads spawned from a single test case. This however does not mean that multiple test cases can be ran in parallel - test cases are still ran serially. [**Subcases**](tutorial.html#test-cases-and-subcases) should also be used only from the test runner thread and all threads spawned in a subcase ought to be joined before the end of that subcase and no new subcases should be entered while other threads with doctest assertions in them are still running - not following these instructions will lead to crashes (example in [**here**](../../examples/all_features/concurrency.cpp)). Also note that logged context in one thread will not be used/printed when asserts from another thread fail - logged context is thread-local. 100 101 There is also an option to run a [**range**](commandline.html) of tests from an executable - so tests can be ran in parallel by invoking the process multiple times with different ranges - see [**the example python script**](../../examples/range_based_execution.py). 102 103 ### Is mocking supported? 104 105 **doctest** doesn't support mocking but should be easy to integrate with third-party libraries such as: 106 107 - [trompeloeil](https://github.com/rollbear/trompeloeil) - integration shown [here](https://github.com/rollbear/trompeloeil/blob/master/docs/CookBook.html#adapt_doctest) 108 - [FakeIt](https://github.com/eranpeer/FakeIt) - integration might be similar to that of [catch](https://github.com/eranpeer/FakeIt/tree/master/config/catch) but this has not been looked into 109 110 by using the [**logging**](logging.html#messages-which-can-optionally-fail-test-cases) macros such as ```ADD_FAIL_AT(file, line, message)``` 111 112 <!-- 113 Not sure how to integrate with these: 114 https://github.com/dascandy/hippomocks 115 https://github.com/tpounds/mockitopp 116 --> 117 118 ### Why are my tests in a static library not getting registered? 119 120 This is a [**common problem among libraries with self-registering code**](https://groups.google.com/forum/#!msg/catch-forum/FV0Qo62DvgY/jxEO6c9_q3kJ) and it affects all modern compilers on all platforms. 121 122 The problem is that when a static library is being linked to a binary (executable or dll) - only object files from the static library that define a symbol being required from the binary will get pulled in (this is a linker/dependency optimization). 123 124 A way to solve this in CMake is to use object libraries instead of static libraries - like this: 125 126 ```cmake 127 add_library(with_tests OBJECT src_1.cpp src_2.cpp src_3.cpp ...) 128 129 add_library(dll SHARED $<TARGET_OBJECTS:with_tests> dll_src_1.cpp ...) 130 add_executable(exe $<TARGET_OBJECTS:with_tests> exe_src_1.cpp ...) 131 ``` 132 133 Thanks to [pthom](https://github.com/pthom) for suggesting this. 134 135 As an alternative I have created a CMake function that forces every object file from a static library to be linked into a binary target - it is called [**```doctest_force_link_static_lib_in_target()```**](../../examples/exe_with_static_libs/doctest_force_link_static_lib_in_target.cmake). It is unintrusive - no source file gets changed - everything is done with compiler flags per source files. An example project using it can be found [**here**](../../examples/exe_with_static_libs) - the commented part of the CMakeLists.txt file. 136 137 It doesn't work in 2 scenarios: 138 139 - either the target or the library uses a precompiled header - see [**this**](https://github.com/doctest/doctest/issues/21#issuecomment-247001423) issue for details 140 - either the target or the library is an imported target (pre-built) and not built within the current cmake tree 141 142 You can also checkout this repository for a different solution: [**pthom/doctest_registerlibrary**](https://github.com/pthom/doctest_registerlibrary). 143 144 A compiler-specific solution for MSVC is to use the [```/OPT:NOREF```](https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bxwfs976.aspx) linker flag (thanks to [lectem](https://github.com/Lectem) for [reporting](https://github.com/doctest/doctest/issues/106) it!). Another option is to look at [```/wholearchive```](https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/cpp/build/reference/wholearchive-include-all-library-object-files?view=vs-2019) for MSVC. 145 146 ### Why is comparing C strings (```char*```) actually comparing pointers? 147 148 **doctest** by default treats ```char*``` as normal pointers. Using the [**```DOCTEST_CONFIG_TREAT_CHAR_STAR_AS_STRING```**](configuration.html#doctest_config_treat_char_star_as_string) changes that. 149 150 ### How to write tests in header-only libraries? 151 152 There are 2 options: 153 154 - just include the doctest header in your headers and write the tests - the doctest header should be shipped with your headers and the user will have to implement the doctest runner in one of their source files. 155 - don't include the doctest header and guard your test cases with ```#ifdef DOCTEST_LIBRARY_INCLUDED``` and ```#endif``` - that way your tests will be compiled and registered if the user includes the doctest header before your headers (and they will also have to implement the test runner somewhere). 156 157 Also note that it would be a good idea to add a tag in your test case names (like this: ```TEST_CASE("[the_lib] testing foo")```) so the user can easily filter them out with ```--test-case-exclude=*the_lib*``` if they wish to. 158 159 ### Does the framework use exceptions? 160 161 Yes - but they can be disabled - see the [**```DOCTEST_CONFIG_NO_EXCEPTIONS```**](configuration.html#doctest_config_no_exceptions) config identifier. 162 163 ### Why do I get compiler errors in STL headers when including the doctest header? 164 165 Try using the [**```DOCTEST_CONFIG_USE_STD_HEADERS```**](configuration.html#doctest_config_use_std_headers) configuration identifier. 166 167 ### Can different versions of the framework be used within the same binary (executable/dll)? 168 169 Currently no. Single header libraries like [**stb**](https://github.com/nothings/stb) have this as an option (everything gets declared static - making it with internal linkage) but it isn't very logical for **doctest** - the main point is to write tests in any source file of the project and have the test runner implemented in only one source file. 170 171 ### Why is doctest using macros? 172 173 Aren't they evil and not *modern*? - Check out the answer Phil Nash gives to this question [**here**](http://accu.org/index.php/journals/2064) (the creator of [**Catch**](https://github.com/catchorg/Catch2)). 174 175 ### How to use with multiple files? 176 177 All you need to do is define either [**```DOCTEST_CONFIG_IMPLEMENT_WITH_MAIN```**](configuration.html#doctest_config_implement_with_main) or [**```DOCTEST_CONFIG_IMPLEMENT```**](configuration.html#doctest_config_implement) in only ONE of the source files just before including the doctest header - in all other source files you just include the header and use the framework. The difference between the two is that one of them provides a `main()` entry point - for more info on that please refer to [`The main() entry point`](main.html). 178 179 --------------- 180 181 [Home](readme.html#reference) 182 183 <p align="center"><img src="../../scripts/data/logo/icon_2.svg"></p> 184 185 186 </xmp> 187 <script src="strapdown.js/strapdown.js"></script> 188 </html>