Re: RFC: GLib testing framework

["Mikkel Kamstrup Erlandsen" <mikkel kamstrup gmail com>]

 "Matthias Clasen" <matthias clasen gmail com>, Tue, 6 Nov 2007 13:12:02 -0500

> > On 11/1/07, Tim Janik <timj imendio com> wrote:
> > - we provide an extended set of assertions for strings, ints and floats
> >    that allow printing of assertion arguments upon failures to reduce
> >    the need for debugging:
> >      g_assert_cmpfloat (arg1, cmpop, arg2);
> >      g_assert_cmpint   (arg1, cmpop, arg2);
>
> >      g_assert_cmpstr   (arg1, cmpop, arg2);
> >    used like:
> >      g_assert_cmpstr ("foo", !=, "faa");
> >      g_assert_cmpfloat (3.3, <, epsilon);
> >    g_assert() is still available of course, but using the above variants,
> >    assertion messages can be more elaborate, e.g.:
> >      ** testing.c:test_assertions(): assertion failed '(3.3 < epsilon)': (3.3 < 0.5)
>
> This syntax strikes me as not particularly elegant and a pretty severe
> clash with
> C syntax. I don't think I can get myself to insert random commas into
> expressions like that.
>
> How about this instead ?
>
> g_assert_with_message ("foo not smaller than bar", foo > bar)

While I am overly exited about the possiblity of a general testing framework in glib I have problems with the current syntax:

  g_assert_cmp* (arg1, cmpop, qrg2);
 

Any IDE supporting syntax highlighting (the real kind - with red underlining when you don't close braces or forget semi-colons etc.) will likely choke on this non-C syntax, as will many more advanced code-introspection tools.

A toally different thing is that JUnit has method that asserts that two floats/doubles are within a specified range of each other (ie. equality testing for floats/doubles). How about:

  g_assert_cmpfloat_delta (arg1, arg2, delta);
  g_assert_cmpdouble_delta (arg1, arg2, delta);

Cheers,
Mikkel