path: root/README

Google C++ Testing Framework
============================
http://code.google.com/p/googletest/

Overview
--------
Google's framework for writing C++ tests on a variety of platforms (Linux, Mac
OS X, Windows, Windows CE, Symbian, and etc). Based on the xUnit architecture.
Supports automatic test discovery, a rich set of assertions, user-defined
assertions, death tests, fatal and non-fatal failures, various options for
running the tests, and XML test report generation.

Please see the project page above for more information as well as mailing lists
for questions, discussions, and development. There is also an IRC channel on
OFTC (irc.oftc.net) #gtest available. Please join us!

Requirements
------------
Google Test is designed to have fairly minimal requirements to build
and use with your projects, but there are some. Currently, we support
building Google Test on Linux, Windows, Mac OS X, and Cygwin.  We will
also make our best effort to support other platforms (e.g. Solaris and
IBM z/OS).  However, since core members of the Google Test project
have no access to them, Google Test may have outstanding issues on
these platforms.  If you notice any problems on your platform, please
notify googletestframework@googlegroups.com (patches for fixing them
are even more welcome!).

### Linux Requirements ###
These are the base requirements to build and use Google Test from a source
package (as described below):
  * GNU-compatible Make or "gmake"
  * POSIX-standard shell
  * POSIX(-2) Regular Expressions (regex.h)
  * A C++98 standards compliant compiler

Furthermore, if you are building Google Test from a VCS Checkout (also
described below), there are further requirements:
  * Automake version 1.9 or newer
  * Autoconf version 2.59 or newer
  * Libtool / Libtoolize
  * Python version 2.4 or newer

### Windows Requirements ###
  * Microsoft Visual Studio 7.1 or newer

### Cygwin Requirements ###
  * Cygwin 1.5.25-14 or newer

### Mac OS X Requirements ###
  * Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger or newer
  * Developer Tools Installed
  * Optional: Xcode 2.5 or later for univeral-binary framework; see note below.

Getting the Source
------------------
There are two primary ways of getting Google Test's source code: you can
download a source release in your preferred archive format, or directly check
out the source from a Version Control System (VCS, we use Google Code's
Subversion hosting). The VCS checkout requires a few extra steps and some extra
software packages on your system, but lets you track development, and make
patches to contribute much more easily, so we highly encourage it.

### VCS Checkout: ###
The first step is to select whether you want to check out the main line of
development on Google Test, or one of the released branches. The former will be
much more active and have the latest features, but the latter provides much
more stability and predictability. Choose whichever fits your needs best, and
proceed with the following Subversion commands:

  $ svn checkout http://googletest.googlecode.com/svn/trunk/ gtest-svn

or for a release version X.Y.*'s branch:

  $ svn checkout http://googletest.googlecode.com/svn/branches/release-X.Y/ gtest-X.Y-svn

Next you will need to prepare the GNU Autotools build system, if you
are using Linux, Mac OS X, or Cygwin. Enter the target directory of
the checkout command you used ('gtest-svn' or 'gtest-X.Y-svn' above)
and proceed with the following command to bootstrap the build system:

  $ ACLOCAL=aclocal-1.9 AUTOMAKE=automake-1.9 autoreconf -fiv

You can substitute newer versions of 'aclocal' and 'automake', but be aware
that older versions are known not to work, and autoreconf may or may not
correctly detect the required version. Also, the versions must match for both
commands. However, this entire process will be automatically re-run by your
"make" invocations, so in practice you shouldn't need to worry too much. Once
you have completed these steps, you are ready to build the library.

### Source Package: ###
Google Test is also released in source packages which can be downloaded from
its Google Code download page[1]. Several different archive formats are
provided, but the only difference is the tools used to manipulate them, and the
size of the resulting file. Download whichever you are most comfortable with.

  [1] Google Test Downloads: http://code.google.com/p/googletest/downloads/list

Once downloaded expand the archive using whichever tools you prefer for that
type. This will always result in a new directory with the name "gtest-X.Y.Z"
which contains all of the source code. Here are some examples in Linux:

  $ tar -xvzf gtest-X.Y.Z.tar.gz
  $ tar -xvjf gtest-X.Y.Z.tar.bz2
  $ unzip gtest-X.Y.Z.zip

Building the Source
-------------------
### Linux, Mac OS X (without Xcode), and Cygwin ###
There are two primary options for building the source at this point: build it
inside the source code tree, or in a separate directory. We recommend building
in a separate directory as that tends to produce both more consistent results
and be easier to clean up should anything go wrong, but both patterns are
supported. The only hard restriction is that while the build directory can be
a subdirectory of the source directory, the opposite is not possible and will
result in errors. Once you have selected where you wish to build Google Test,
create the directory if necessary, and enter it. The following steps apply for
either approach by simply substituting the shell variable SRCDIR with "." for
building inside the source directory, and the relative path to the source
directory otherwise.

  $ ${SRCDIR}/configure  # Standard GNU configure script, --help for more info
  $ make  # Standard makefile following GNU conventions
  $ make check  # Builds and runs all tests - all should pass

Other programs will only be able to use Google Test's functionality if you
install it in a location which they can access, in Linux this is typically
under '/usr/local'. The following command will install all of the Google Test
libraries, public headers, and utilities necessary for other programs and
libraries to leverage it:

  $ sudo make install  # Not necessary, but allows use by other programs

TODO(chandlerc@google.com): This section needs to be expanded when the
'gtest-config' script is finished and Autoconf macro's are provided (or not
provided) in order to properly reflect the process for other programs to
locate, include, and link against Google Test.

Finally, should you need to remove Google Test from your system after having
installed it, run the following command, and it will back out its changes.
However, note carefully that you must run this command on the *same* Google
Test build that you ran the install from, or the results are not predictable.
If you install Google Test on your system, and are working from a VCS checkout,
make sure you run this *before* updating your checkout of the source in order
to uninstall the same version which you installed.

  $ sudo make uninstall  # Must be run against the exact same build as "install"

### Windows ###
Open the gtest.sln file in the msvc/ folder using Visual Studio, and
you are ready to build Google Test the same way you build any Visual
Studio project.

### Mac OS X (universal-binary framework) ###
Open the gtest.xcodeproj in the xcode/ folder using Xcode. Build the "gtest"
target. The universal binary framework will end up in your selected build
directory (selected in the Xcode "Preferences..." -> "Building" pane and
defaults to xcode/build). Alternatively, at the command line, enter:

 $ xcodebuild
 
This will build the "Release" configuration of the gtest.framework, but you can
select the "Debug" configuration with a command line option. See the
"xcodebuild" man page for more information.

To test the gtest.framework in Xcode, change the active target to "Check" and
then build. This target builds all of the tests and then runs them. Don't worry
if you see some errors. Xcode reports all test failures (even the intentional
ones) as errors. However, you should see a "Build succeeded" message at the end
of the build log. To run all of the tests from the command line, enter:

  $ xcodebuid -target Check

It is also possible to build and execute individual tests within Xcode. Each
test has its own Xcode "Target" and Xcode "Executable". To build any of the
tests, change the active target and the active executable to the test of
interest and then build and run.

NOTE: Several tests use a Python script to run the test executable. These can be
run from Xcode by creating a "Custom Executable". For example, to run the Python
script which executes the gtest_color_test, select the Project->New Custom
Executable... menu item. When prompted, set the "Executable Name" to something
like "run_gtest_color_test" and set the "Executable Path" to the path of the
gtest_color_test.py script. Finally, choose "Run" from the Run menu and check
the Console for the results.

Individual tests can be built from the command line using:

  $ xcodebuild -target <test_name>

These tests can be executed from the command line by moving to the build
directory and then (in bash)

  $ export DYLD_FRAMEWORK_PATH=`pwd`
  $ ./<test_name>  # (if it is not a python test, e.g. ./gtest_unittest)
    OR
  $ ./<test_name>.py  # (if it is a python test, e.g. ./gtest_color_test.py)

To use the gtest.framework for your own tests, first, add the framework to Xcode
project. Next, create a new executable target and add the framework to the
"Link Binary With Libraries" build phase. Select "Edit Active Executable" from
the "Project" menu. In the "Arguments" tab, add

    "DYLD_FRAMEWORK_PATH" : "/real/framework/path"

in the "Variables to be set in the environment:" list, where you replace
"/real/framework/path" with the actual location of the gtest.framework. Now
when you run your executable, it will load the framework and your test will
run as expected. 

### Using GNU Make ###
The make/ directory contains a Makefile that you can use to build
Google Test on systems where GNU make is available (e.g. Linux, Mac OS
X, and Cygwin).  It doesn't try to build Google Test's own tests.
Instead, it just builds the Google Test library and a sample test.
You can use it as a starting point for your own Makefile.

If the default settings are correct for your environment, the
following commands should succeed:

  $ cd ${SRCDIR}/make
  $ make
  $ ./sample1_unittest

If you see errors, try to tweak the contents of make/Makefile to make
them go away.  There are instructions in make/Makefile on how to do
it.

### Using Your Own Build System ###
If none of the build solutions we provide works for you, or if you
prefer your own build system, you just need to compile
src/gtest-all.cc into a library and link your tests with it.  Assuming
a Linux-like system and gcc, something like the following will do:

  $ cd ${SRCDIR}
  $ g++ -I. -I./include -c src/gtest-all.cc
  $ ar -rv libgtest.a gtest-all.o
  $ g++ -I. -I./include path/to/your_test.cc libgtest.a -o your_test

Regenerating Source Files
-------------------------
Some of Google Test's source files are generated from templates (not
in the C++ sense) using a script.  A template file is named FOO.pump,
where FOO is the name of the file it will generate.  For example, the
file include/gtest/internal/gtest-type-util.h.pump is used to generate
gtest-type-util.h in the same directory.

Normally you don't need to worry about regenerating the source files,
unless you need to modify them (e.g. if you are working on a patch for
Google Test).  In that case, you should modify the corresponding .pump
files instead and run the 'pump' script (for Pump is Useful for Meta
Programming) to regenerate them.  We are still working on releasing
the script and its documentation.  If you need it now, please email
googletestframework@googlegroups.com such that we know to make it
happen sooner.

Happy testing!