test-fixtures

Although Catch2 allows you to group tests together as sections within a test case, it can still be convenient, sometimes, to group them using a more traditional test. Catch2 fully supports this too with 3 different macros for non-templated test fixtures. They are:

Macro	Description
1. `TEST_CASE_METHOD(className, ...)`	Creates a uniquely named class which inherits from the class specified by `className`. The test function will be a member of this derived class. An instance of the derived class will be created for every partial run of the test case.
2. `METHOD_AS_TEST_CASE(member-function, ...)`	Uses `member-function` as the test function. An instance of the class will be created for each partial run of the test case.
3. `TEST_CASE_PERSISTENT_FIXTURE(className, ...)`	Creates a uniquely named class which inherits from the class specified by `className`. The test function will be a member of this derived class. An instance of the derived class will be created at the start of the test run. That instance will be destroyed once the entire test case has ended.

1. TEST_CASE_METHOD

class UniqueTestsFixture {
  private:
   static int uniqueID;
  protected:
   DBConnection conn;
  public:
   UniqueTestsFixture() : conn(DBConnection::createConnection("myDB")) {
   }
  protected:
   int getID() {
     return ++uniqueID;
   }
 };

 int UniqueTestsFixture::uniqueID = 0;

 TEST_CASE_METHOD(UniqueTestsFixture, "Create Employee/No Name", "[create]") {
   REQUIRE_THROWS(conn.executeSQL("INSERT INTO employee (id, name) VALUES (?, ?)", getID(), ""));
 }
 TEST_CASE_METHOD(UniqueTestsFixture, "Create Employee/Normal", "[create]") {
   REQUIRE(conn.executeSQL("INSERT INTO employee (id, name) VALUES (?, ?)", getID(), "Joe Bloggs"));
 }

The two test cases here will create uniquely-named derived classes of UniqueTestsFixture and thus can access the getID() protected method and conn member variables. This ensures that both the test cases are able to create a DBConnection using the same method (DRY principle) and that any ID’s created are unique such that the order that tests are executed does not matter.

2. METHOD_AS_TEST_CASE

METHOD_AS_TEST_CASE lets you register a member function of a class as a Catch2 test case. The class will be separately instantiated for each method registered in this way.

class TestClass {
    std::string s;

public:
    TestClass()
        :s( "hello" )
    {}

    void testCase() {
        REQUIRE( s == "hello" );
    }
};


METHOD_AS_TEST_CASE( TestClass::testCase, "Use class's method as a test case", "[class]" )

This type of fixture is similar to TEST_CASE_METHOD except in this case it will directly use the provided class to create an object rather than a derived class.

3. TEST_CASE_PERSISTENT_FIXTURE

TEST_CASE_PERSISTENT_FIXTURE behaves in the same way as TEST_CASE_METHOD except that there will only be one instance created throughout the entire run of a test case. To demonstrate this have a look at the following example:

class ClassWithExpensiveSetup {
public:
    ClassWithExpensiveSetup() {
        // expensive construction
        std::this_thread::sleep_for( std::chrono::seconds( 2 ) );
    }

    ~ClassWithExpensiveSetup() noexcept {
        // expensive destruction
        std::this_thread::sleep_for( std::chrono::seconds( 1 ) );
    }

    int getInt() const { return 42; }
};

struct MyFixture {
    mutable int myInt = 0;
    ClassWithExpensiveSetup expensive;
};

TEST_CASE_PERSISTENT_FIXTURE( MyFixture, "Tests with MyFixture" ) {

    const int val = myInt++;

    SECTION( "First partial run" ) {
        const auto otherValue = expensive.getInt();
        REQUIRE( val == 0 );
        REQUIRE( otherValue == 42 );
    }

    SECTION( "Second partial run" ) { REQUIRE( val == 1 ); }
}

This example demonstates two possible use-cases of this fixture type: 1. Improve test run times by reducing the amount of expensive and redundant setup and tear-down required. 2. Reusing results from the previous partial run, in the current partial run.

This test case will be executed twice as there are two leaf sections. On the first run val will be 0 and on the second run val will be 1. This demonstrates that we were able to use the results of the previous partial run in subsequent partial runs.

Additionally, we are simulating an expensive object using std::this_thread::sleep_for, but real world use-cases could be: 1. Creating a D3D12/Vulkan device 2. Connecting to a database 3. Loading a file.

The fixture object (MyFixture) will be constructed just before the test case begins, and it will be destroyed just after the test case ends. Therefore, this expensive object will only be created and destroyed once during the execution of this test case. If we had used TEST_CASE_METHOD, MyFixture would have been created and destroyed twice during the execution of this test case.

NOTE: The member function which runs the test case is const. Therefore if you want to mutate any member of the fixture it must be marked as mutable as shown in this example. This is to make it clear that the initial state of the fixture is intended to mutate during the execution of the test case.

Templated test fixtures

Catch2 also provides TEMPLATE_TEST_CASE_METHOD and TEMPLATE_PRODUCT_TEST_CASE_METHOD that can be used together with templated fixtures and templated template fixtures to perform tests for multiple different types. Unlike TEST_CASE_METHOD, TEMPLATE_TEST_CASE_METHOD and TEMPLATE_PRODUCT_TEST_CASE_METHOD do require the tag specification to be non-empty, as it is followed by further macro arguments.

Also note that, because of limitations of the C++ preprocessor, if you want to specify a type with multiple template parameters, you need to enclose it in parentheses, e.g. std::map<int, std::string> needs to be passed as (std::map<int, std::string>). In the case of TEMPLATE_PRODUCT_TEST_CASE_METHOD, if a member of the type list should consist of more than single type, it needs to be enclosed in another pair of parentheses, e.g. (std::map, std::pair) and ((int, float), (char, double)).

template< typename T >
struct Template_Fixture {
    Template_Fixture(): m_a(1) {}

    T m_a;
};

TEMPLATE_TEST_CASE_METHOD(Template_Fixture,
                          "A TEMPLATE_TEST_CASE_METHOD based test run that succeeds",
                          "[class][template]",
                          int, float, double) {
    REQUIRE( Template_Fixture<TestType>::m_a == 1 );
}

template<typename T>
struct Template_Template_Fixture {
    Template_Template_Fixture() {}

    T m_a;
};

template<typename T>
struct Foo_class {
    size_t size() {
        return 0;
    }
};

TEMPLATE_PRODUCT_TEST_CASE_METHOD(Template_Template_Fixture,
                                  "A TEMPLATE_PRODUCT_TEST_CASE_METHOD based test succeeds",
                                  "[class][template]",
                                  (Foo_class, std::vector),
                                  int) {
    REQUIRE( Template_Template_Fixture<TestType>::m_a.size() == 0 );
}

While there is an upper limit on the number of types you can specify in single TEMPLATE_TEST_CASE_METHOD or TEMPLATE_PRODUCT_TEST_CASE_METHOD, the limit is very high and should not be encountered in practice.

Signature-based parameterised test fixtures

Catch2 also provides TEMPLATE_TEST_CASE_METHOD_SIG and TEMPLATE_PRODUCT_TEST_CASE_METHOD_SIG to support fixtures using non-type template parameters. These test cases work similar to TEMPLATE_TEST_CASE_METHOD and TEMPLATE_PRODUCT_TEST_CASE_METHOD, with additional positional argument for signature.

template <int V>
struct Nttp_Fixture{
    int value = V;
};

TEMPLATE_TEST_CASE_METHOD_SIG(
    Nttp_Fixture,
    "A TEMPLATE_TEST_CASE_METHOD_SIG based test run that succeeds",
    "[class][template][nttp]",
    ((int V), V),
    1, 3, 6) {
    REQUIRE(Nttp_Fixture<V>::value > 0);
}

template<typename T>
struct Template_Fixture_2 {
    Template_Fixture_2() {}

    T m_a;
};

template< typename T, size_t V>
struct Template_Foo_2 {
    size_t size() { return V; }
};

TEMPLATE_PRODUCT_TEST_CASE_METHOD_SIG(
    Template_Fixture_2,
    "A TEMPLATE_PRODUCT_TEST_CASE_METHOD_SIG based test run that succeeds",
    "[class][template][product][nttp]",
    ((typename T, size_t S), T, S),
    (std::array, Template_Foo_2),
    ((int,2), (float,6))) {
    REQUIRE(Template_Fixture_2<TestType>{}.m_a.size() >= 2);
}

Template fixtures with types specified in template type lists

Catch2 also provides TEMPLATE_LIST_TEST_CASE_METHOD to support template fixtures with types specified in template type lists like std::tuple, boost::mpl::list or boost::mp11::mp_list. This test case works the same as TEMPLATE_TEST_CASE_METHOD, only difference is the source of types. This allows you to reuse the template type list in multiple test cases.

using MyTypes = std::tuple<int, char, double>;
TEMPLATE_LIST_TEST_CASE_METHOD(Template_Fixture,
                               "Template test case method with test types specified inside std::tuple",
                               "[class][template][list]",
                               MyTypes) {
    REQUIRE( Template_Fixture<TestType>::m_a == 1 );
}

Non-Templated test fixtures

1. `TEST_CASE_METHOD`

2. `METHOD_AS_TEST_CASE`

3. `TEST_CASE_PERSISTENT_FIXTURE`

Templated test fixtures

Signature-based parameterised test fixtures

Template fixtures with types specified in template type lists

Non-Templated test fixtures

1. TEST_CASE_METHOD

2. METHOD_AS_TEST_CASE

3. TEST_CASE_PERSISTENT_FIXTURE

Templated test fixtures

Signature-based parameterised test fixtures

Template fixtures with types specified in template type lists

1. `TEST_CASE_METHOD`

2. `METHOD_AS_TEST_CASE`

3. `TEST_CASE_PERSISTENT_FIXTURE`