Comparison of C++ unit test frameworks

Question

I know there are already a few questions regarding recommendations for C++ unit test frameworks, but all the answers did not help as they just recommend one of the frameworks but do not provide any information about a (feature) comparison.

I think the most interesting frameworks are CppUnit, Boost and the new Google testing framework. Has anybody done any comparison yet?

Solution 1

See this question for some discussion.

They recommend the articles: Exploring the C++ Unit Testing Framework Jungle, By Noel Llopis. And the more recent: C++ Test Unit Frameworks

I have not found an article that compares googletest to the other frameworks yet.

Solution 2

A new player is Google Test (also known as Google C++ Testing Framework) which is pretty nice though.

#include <gtest/gtest.h>

TEST(MyTestSuitName, MyTestCaseName) {
    int actual = 1;
    EXPECT_GT(actual, 0);
    EXPECT_EQ(1, actual) << "Should be equal to one";
}

Main features:

• Portable
• Fatal and non-fatal assertions
• Easy assertions informative messages: ASSERT_EQ(5, Foo(i)) << " where i = " << i;
• Google Test automatically detects your tests and doesn't require you to enumerate them in order to run them
• Make it easy to extend your assertion vocabulary
• Death tests (see advanced guide)
• SCOPED_TRACE for subroutine loops
• You can decide which tests to run
• XML test report generation
• Fixtures / Mock / Templates...

Solution 3

I've just pushed my own framework, CATCH, out there. It's still under development but I believe it already surpasses most other frameworks. Different people have different criteria but I've tried to cover most ground without too many trade-offs. Take a look at my linked blog entry for a taster. My top five features are:

• Header only
• Auto registration of function and method based tests
• Decomposes standard C++ expressions into LHS and RHS (so you don't need a whole family of assert macros).
• Support for nested sections within a function based fixture
• Name tests using natural language - function/ method names are generated

It also has Objective-C bindings. The project is hosted on Github

Solution 4

Boost Test Library is a very good choice especially if you're already using Boost.

// TODO: Include your class to test here.
#define BOOST_TEST_MODULE MyTest
#include <boost/test/unit_test.hpp>

BOOST_AUTO_TEST_CASE(MyTestCase)
{
    // To simplify this example test, let's suppose we'll test 'float'.
    // Some test are stupid, but all should pass.
    float x = 9.5f;

    BOOST_CHECK(x != 0.0f);
    BOOST_CHECK_EQUAL((int)x, 9);
    BOOST_CHECK_CLOSE(x, 9.5f, 0.0001f); // Checks differ no more then 0.0001%
}

It supports:

• Automatic or manual tests registration
• Many assertions
• Automatic comparison of collections
• Various output formats (including XML)
• Fixtures / Templates...

PS: I wrote an article about it that may help you getting started: C++ Unit Testing Framework: A Boost Test Tutorial

Solution 5

Wikipedia has a comprehensive list of unit testing frameworks, with tables that identify features supported or not.

View more solutions