I am learning C++ and am working on a QT5 application which is going pretty well.
I am at the point where I need to implement some unittests (catch2) on a few specific parts of the application.
I am lost... I know how to write the tests and there is quite alot of documentation about that. How to configure my project directory structure and the changes to make to CMakeList.txt is a very different story.
It seems everyone sort of does whatever worked for them and then tries to not talk about it to much. 99% of all tutorials about testing start with creating the cpp files assuming everything else has already been taken care of and the left over 1% aren't really matching my requirements.
I am looking for some boiler-plate config or pointers on how to get this stuff to work.
I myself came up with the following:
project dir
external
linux
Qt
ArcGis
src
Gui
Menus
MainMenu.h
MainMenu.cpp
Views
MapView.cpp
MapView.h
NavigatorView.cpp
NavigatorView.h
MainWindow.cpp
MainWindow.h
Models
BaseModel.h
BaseModel.cpp
SurveyModel.h
SurveyModel.cpp
SectionModel.h
SectionModel.cpp
StationModel.h
StationModel.cpp
DataSources
Usb
Reader.cpp <-- I want to build a test for this file
Reader.h
main.cpp
CMakeList.txt
tests
DataSources
Usb
ReaderTest.cpp <-- where this would be the test file
CmakeList.txt
CMakeList.txt
global_config.h.in
The CMakeList.txt for the ./src dir works and creates an executable for my application.
But after that the confusion starts:
In the tests dir, I can build my tests aslong as I don't require anything from my src dir. Which make my tests rather useless. I tried include_dir and add_sub_directories and so on, but somehow I am doing something wrong.
The topLevel CMakeList.txt
It would be cool if I could add different build targets in there, 1 to build the tests and one to build the application.
Is there anyone that can give me some pointers, maybe a git-repo with some boilerplate or something?
Related
I am confused on the right way to get an external library integrated into my own Cmake project (This external project needs to be built along with my project, it's not installed separately, so we can't use find_library, or so I think)
Let's assume we have a project structure like this (simplified for this post):
my_proj/
--CMakeLists.txt
--src/
+---CMakeLists.txt
+---my_server.cpp
That is, we have a master CMakeLists.txt that basically sits at root and invokes CMakeLists for sub directories. Obviously, in this example, because its simplified, I'm not showing all the other files/directories.
I now want to include another C++ GitHub project in my build, which happens to be this C++ bycrypt implementation: https://github.com/trusch/libbcrypt
My goal:
While building my_server.cpp via its make process, I'd like to include the header files for bcrypt and link with its library.
What I've done so far:
- I added a git module for this external library at my project root:
[submodule "third_party/bcrypt"]
path = third_party/bcrypt
url = https://github.com/trusch/libbcrypt
So now, when I checkout my project and do a submodule update, it pulls down bcrypt to ${PROJ_ROOT}/third_party
Next up, I added this to my ROOT CMakeLists.txt
# Process subdirectories
add_subdirectory(third_party/bcrypt)
add_subdirectory(src/)
Great. I know see when I invoke cmake from root, it builds bcrypt inside third_party. And then it builds my src/ directory. The reason I do this is I assume this is the best way to make sure the bcrypt library is ready before my src directory is built.
Questions:
a) Now how do I correctly get the include header path and the library location of this built library into the CMakeLists.txt file inside src/ ? Should I be hardcoding #include "../third_party/bcrypt/include/bcrypt/bcrypt.h" into my_server.cpp and -L ../third_party/libcrypt.so into src/CMakeLists.txt or is there a better way? This is what I've done today and it works, but it looks odd
I have, in src/CMakeLists.txt
set(BCRYPT_LIB,"../third_party/bcrypt/libbcrypt.so")
target_link_libraries(my app ${MY_OTHERLIBS} ${BCRYPT_LIB})
b) Is my approach of relying on sequence of add_directory correct?
Thank you.
The best approach depends on what the bcrypt CMake files are providing you, but it sounds like you want to use find_package, rather than hard-coding the paths. Check out this answer, but there are a few different configurations for find_package: MODULE and CONFIG mode.
If bcrypt builds, and one of the following files gets created for you:
FindBcrypt.cmake
bcrypt-config.cmake
BcryptConfig.cmake
that might give you an idea for which find_package configuration to use. I suggest you check out the documentation for find_package, and look closely at how the search procedure is set up to determine how CMake is searching for bcrypt.
We have C++ project that has a relatively big number of test suites implemented in Boost/Test. All tests are kept out of main project's tree, every test suite is located in separate .cpp file. So, our current CMakeLists.txt for tests looks like this:
cmake_minimum_required(VERSION 2.6)
project(TEST_PROJECT)
find_package(Boost COMPONENTS unit_test_framework REQUIRED)
set(SPEC_SOURCES
main.cpp
spec_foo.cpp
spec_bar.cpp
...
)
set(MAIN_PATH some/path/to/our/main/tree)
set(MAIN_SOURCES
${MAIN_PATH}/foo.cpp
${MAIN_PATH}/bar.cpp
...
)
add_executable (test_project
${SPEC_SOURCES}
${MAIN_SOURCES}
)
target_link_libraries(test_project
${Boost_UNIT_TEST_FRAMEWORK_LIBRARY}
)
add_test(test_project test_project)
enable_testing()
It works ok, but the problem is SPEC_SOURCES and MAIN_SOURCES are fairly long lists and someone occasionally breaks something in either one of the files in main tree or spec sources. This, in turn, makes it impossible to build target executable and test the rest. One has to manually figure out what was broken, go into CMakeLists.txt and comment out parts that fail to compile.
So, the question: is there a way to ignore tests that fail to build automatically in CMake, compile, link and run the rest (ideally, marking up ones that failed as "failed to build")?
Remotely related question
Best practice using boost test and tests that should not compile suggests to try_compile command in CMake. However, in its bare form it justs executes new ad hoc generated CMakeList (which will fail just as the original one) and doesn't have any hooks to remove uncompilable units.
I think you have some issues in your testing approach.
One has to manually figure out what was broken, go into CMakeLists.txt and comment out parts that fail to compile.
If you have good coverage by unit-tests you should be able to identify and locate problems really quickly. Continuous integration (e.g. Jenkins, Buildbot, Travis (GitHub)) can be very helpful. They will run your tests even if some developers have not done so before committing.
Also you assume that a non-compiling class (and its test) would just have to be removed from the build. But what about transitive dependencies, where a non-compiling class breaks compilation of other classes or leads to linking errors. What about tests that break the build? All these things happen during development.
I suggest you separate your build into many libraries each having its own test runner. Put together what belongs together (cohesion). Try to minimize dependencies in your compilation also (dependency injection, interfaces, ...). This will allow to keep development going by having compiling libraries and test runners even if some libs do not compile (for some time).
I guess you could create one test executable per spec source, (using a foreach() loop) and then do something like:
make spec_foo && ./spec_foo
This will only try to build the binary matching the test you want to run
But if your build often fails it may be a sign of some bad design in your production code ...
In my company, we're developing a middle sized project which we plan to use CMake as the build platform generator. In this scenario, me and my colleagues were discussing about which way the CMake should be used. Our discussions came to a turn which we must decide the methods to use. Our directory structure is similar to this:
<"our project"> \
modules \
module_1 \
tests \
test_example.cpp
mock
some_mock_class.hpp
some_class.hpp
some_class.cpp
...
module_2 \
...
module_3 \
...
utility \
...
1- First thing is first, my colleague thinks that folders like "src" and "includes" are reminder of C programming and has no place in a modern C++ program, so we don't need them. So we removed them from the structure, but being a Linux guy; I'm not sure if this is a good idea. Should we set a "include" directory for headers, so CMake can install them appropriately to the include dirs of the install target; or can CMake handle them appropriately?
2- Should we make a CMakeLists.txt to the root of the project which includes and defines all the targets, or should we make a CMakeLists.txt per module, and then use "add_subdirectory" directives to include them? My colleague thinks on CMakeLists.txt is the best, because this way the module implementors don't need to think about CMake at all, and one or two admins of deployment can maintain the file; but I think every module implementor is more aware of which libraries they use, and how to compile their modules - which he disagrees. What do you suggest in this case?
If you did use CMake for such a middle-sized project before (or know of a case) can you please recommend us what they did and, if possible, why?
Sincerely
The topic is huge, but in short my personal recommendation. For a middle project I assime a component model should be already applied. Then reasonable then is, to have component directories with their onwn CMakeLists.txt which are referenced by the top-level CMakeLists.txt via add_subdirectory(). Each component - a separate library (I like static ones).
For the component folders I find reasonable to hide all internal stuff (aka implementation and private headers, ...) under a private sub-directory to do not be exposed to the outside. Then, in the top component directory you have only headers which are to be used by the others. In the private directory you can mix sources and headers - this is only a matter of the taste for mid projects. And the private directory can also be decomposed if the component is large. But then you need to decide either to add all artifacts to the single CMakeLists.txt of the component, or to have sub-libraries. But in that case the users should link to them individually instead to link to the component's library only.
In the best case, the folder structure should follow the dependencies structure and form a tree-view build system, where the components have as less knowlege about internals of the other components as possible. In that case you will have a good configurability and flexibility in case of possible refactorings. In the other words, the design of the build system seems to me similar to the class design in C++ - same principles.
The real (target) build directory where you run cmake can be located anywhere, normally outside of the source directory. A good place for it could be a RAM disc if you enough memory. Then for the clean build you need just to remove it, that's it. But the source and the build itself have no dependency from its location.
Ah yes, one more hint. My recommendation would be to include headers by the path starting from the component directory like #include "SomeHeader.hpp" which is located as ComponentX/SomeHeader.hpp. Then the CMakelists.txt is used to do the ComponentX directory known to your component. This means, the paths to the headers are not hardcoded in the source files. This brings some limitation like unique file names, but makes changes to the components location much easier.
Hope this anyhow helps.
So firstly I'm new to testing frameworks and relatively new to C++ but am trying to wrap my head around GoogleTest. I'm working on a Windows machine, running "Git for Windows" (MSYS) and MinGW whilst using Sublime Text as my code editor. I am using make as my build tool, although the more I learn about cmake and its cross-platform focus makes me wonder if I should switch to let cmake create makefiles for me. (that's probably a whole other question)
What I'm struggling to understand is what precisly to do with the GoogleTest source package. I realise that I need to build the source into the library and then include that when compiling my tests, but how should I go about doing this? Google includes a cmake build script that generates env/compilier specific makefiles for building. Should I be using this? I feel like if i do so and it blindly works a lot of what is happening under the hood will go over my head. The readme file isn't eliviating my issues, as it implies that i should be building the library and my tests each time i wish the run them. Shouldn't a library be a standalone archive that needs compiling only once? I'm confused and I'm sure its my fault but i'd appreciate it if someone shed some light on this process for me.
You should keep in mind that make will not rebuild gtest if you don't change anything in gtest source code.
Below is my approach to the usage of cmake and gtest for unit testing.
You can add gtest source code by adding it as subdirectory in the root CMakeLists.txt file.
add_subdirectory(${CMAKE_SOURCE_DIR}/thirdparty/gtest ${CMAKE_CURRENT_BINARY_DIR}/gtest)
include_directories(${CMAKE_SOURCE_DIR}/thirdparty/gtest/include ${CMAKE_SOURCE_DIR}/thirdparty/gtest)
My application consist of individual modules containing test folder for unit testing. I have the following boilerplate loop to add each test to the global scope.
file(GLOB TEST_SRC_FILES *.cpp)
foreach(TEST_SRC_PATH ${TEST_SRC_FILES})
#get filename of your test without extension
get_filename_component(TEST_NAME ${TEST_SRC_PATH} NAME_WE)
add_executable(${TEST_NAME} ${TEST_NAME})
#here you link the test executable with gtest
target_link_libraries(${TEST_NAME} gtest gtest_main)
#-----------------------------
# you can link here your test to external libraries
#-----------------------------
add_test(${TEST_NAME} ${TEST_NAME})
#this is a list of all tests
set(PROJECT_TEST_NAMES ${PROJECT_TEST_NAMES} ${TEST_NAME})
endforeach()
#This assigns the list of tests to a property. This make the list available from the root scope.
get_property(UNIT_TESTS GLOBAL PROPERTY UNIT_TESTS)
set(UNIT_TESTS ${UNIT_TESTS} ${PROJECT_TEST_NAMES})
set_property(GLOBAL PROPERTY UNIT_TESTS ${UNIT_TESTS} )
Finally, in the root scope, I add a custom target named check which runs ctest on my unit tests.
#-----------------------------
# Running unit tests
#-----------------------------
get_property(UNIT_TESTS GLOBAL PROPERTY UNIT_TESTS)
if(DEFINED UNIT_TESTS)
add_custom_target(check COMMAND ctest -VV
DEPENDS ${UNIT_TESTS})
endif()
When I run make check, it runs unit tests from all modules, whereas make compiles without tests.
I have been struggling with this for quite a while, and my adventures with cmake have only resulted in hackish solutions that I am pretty sure are not correct.
I created a library that consists of several files, as follows:
-libfolder
-codepart1folder
-CMakeLists.txt
-codepart1.cpp
-codepart1.hpp
-codepart2folder
-codepart3folder
-lib.cpp
-lib.hpp
-CMakeLists.txt
I wrote a CMakeLists file to compile the library (after some experimentation), and I can generate a lib.a file. Now I would like to include this code as a library in other projects, and access it through the interface in lib.hpp. What is the best way to do this, in terms of directory structure, and what I need to put into CMakeLists.txt in my root project?
My current attempt has been to add -libfolder as a subfolder to my current project, and add the commands:
include_directories(${PROJECT_SOURCE_DIR}/libfolder)
link_directories(${PROJECT_BINARY_DIR}/libfolder)
add_subdirectory(libfolder)
target_link_libraries(project lib)
When I run make, the library compiles fine, but when project.cpp compiles, it complains that it cannot find codepart1.hpp (which is included in lib.hpp, included from project.cpp).
I suspect that this is the wrong way about doing this, but I cannot wade through the CMake documentation and find a good tutorial on setting up projects like this. Please help, CMake gurus!
The clean way to import one CMake project into another is via the find_package command. The package declaration is done by using the export command. An advantage of using find_package is that it eliminates the need to hard-code paths to the package's files.
Regarding the missing hpp file, you didn't include codepart1folder, so it's not on the include path.
Ok, so after consulting a coworker of mine who is a CMake guru, it seems CMake does not have support for what I am trying to do, leaving one with 3 options:
Add all of the dependencies to the parent projects CMakeLists.txt - not very clean, but it will get the thing to work. You'll have to do this for every project you add the code to, and go back and fix things if your library changes.
clean up your library headers. This is done through some compiler hackery. The idea is to forward-declare every class, and use only pointers or boost::shared_ptr, and then include the dependencies only in the cpp file. That way you can build the cpp file using all the findpackage stuff, and you get the bonus of being able to use the lib by only including the header and linking to the library.
Look into build systems. Having portable code and fast code compilation with complex dependencies is not a solved problem! From my investigations it turned out to be quite complicated. I ended up adopting my coworkers build system which he created himself in cmake, using things he picked up from Google.
Looking at your post you don't seem to add 'codepart1folder' to the includes anywhere. How are you including codepart1.hpp as:
#include <codepart1.hpp>
#include "codepart1folder/codepart1.hpp"
I don't think there is a standard accepted way to structure cmake projects. I've looked at a bunch of cmake repos and they tend to have differences. Personally I do the following:
-project
CMakeLists.txt
-build
-cmake
OptionalCmakeModule.cmake
-src
-Main
Main.cpp
Main.hpp
-DataStructs
SomeTree.hpp
SomeObject.hpp
-Debug
Debug.hpp
-UI
Window.hpp
Window.cpp
Basically that dumps all the source code into 1 directory, then you perform an out of source build with: 'mkdir build && cd build && cmake .. && make' in the projects root folder.
If you have separate libs as part of your project, then you might want a separate libs directory with another subfolder for your specific lib.
I have some of my repos on: https://github.com/dcbishop/ if you want to look at the CMakeLists.txt files.
The main problems with my project structure are that I use the FILE_GLOB which is apparently the 'wrong' way to do things (if you add files after running 'cmake ..' then they won't be picked up hen you do a 'make'). I haven't figured out what the 'right' way to do it is (from what I can see it involves keeping a separate list of files) I also only use 1 CMakeLists.txt file.
Some projects also choose to separate their cpp and hpp files into separate directories. So you would have an include and src folders (at least for the hpp files that are intended to be used externally). I think that would mainly be for projects that are mainly large libraries. Would also make installing header files much easier.
You are probably missing
include_directories(${PROJECT_SOURCE_DIR}/libfolder/codepart1folder)
In such a case you might want to set( CMAKE_INCLUDE_CURRENT_DIR on) to add all folders to the include directory path variable.
Check cmake's output on the command line whether the correct include folders are set or not. Additionally you can always use message() as "print debugging" for cmake variables.
In case of include directories however you need to read the directory property to see what is actually in the include directories.
get_property(inc_dirs DIRECTORY PROPERTY INCLUDE_DIRECTORIES)
message("inc_dirs = ${inc_dirs}")
I hope this helps you figuring out what is missing.
Edit
I just saw your comment about added codepart1folder in the libfolder. It is only available in the libfolder's include_directory path and not propagated to the root folder.
Since the include codepart1.hpp is present in the lib.hpp however you need to have it also available in the project path otherwise you will get missing declaration errors when you build your project.