qiBuild documentation

Testing a project

You can add tests to your projects using the qi_add_test functions.

You can then run the tests with:

$ qibuild test foo

Note for CTest users

qibuild test does not use ctest executable, and qi_add_test is not calling upstream add_test function.

The reasons for this are:

  • qibuild test is just actually calling qitest run which is able to run any test executable, not just those coming from a CMake project.
  • we needed to be able to run the tests after they have been deployed, and CTest does not support this use case
  • Having a test runner implemented in Python made it possible for us to implement more features such as running tests with valgrind, or specify a CPU mask for each test.

This means that you cannot use set_test_properties for a test created with qi_add_test

Also note that qibuild test is intended to be used with Jenkins, instead of CDash.

qibuild test features

  • qibuild test will always generate JUnit-like XML files to project/build-tests/results, so you do not have to use any test framework to generate the XML for you.
  • The tests are run from <build>/sdk/bin by default.
  • If your test is a simple executable and you only care about the return code, the generated XML will contain the full output of the program and the return code.
<testsuite name="test">
  <testcase name="test_foo" status="run">
    <failure message="Return code: 2">
      <![CDATA[
  ERROR: ...
      ]]>
    </failure>
  </testcase>
</testsuite>
  • If you use qi_create_gtest, the test will be called with the correct --gtest-output function for you
  • If your GTest test times out, or segfaults, it sometimes leaves an invalid XML file behind. But qibuild test will handle this case nicely, producing a nice XML Junit files with an error message about the time out or the segfault.
 <testsuite name="test">
  <testcase name="test_foo" status="run">
    <failure message="Timed out (2 s)">
    </failure>
  </testcase>
</testsuite>