Re: [PATCH v3 3/7] unit-tests: add for_test

From: Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>
Date: Jul 26, 2024, 02:41 UTC
Message-ID: <xmqqv80szxgw.fsf@gitster.g>
In-Reply-To: <CAO_smVhq=MkQV3a6qJtDiFykvR4im7AX4hMfKMNcL5SegnOSLA@mail.gmail.com>

Kyle Lippincott <spectral@google.com> writes:

Show 14 quoted lines

>> > Maybe it's because I'm coming from a C++ environment at
>> > $JOB that's using Google's gunit and gmock frameworks, where every
>> > test is in its own function and we usually don't even write the main
>> > function ourselves, but I have a preference for the separate
>> > functions.
>>
>> If we do not have to write the main at all, then it would make the
>> separate function that implements a single test a lot more palatable,
>> and we do not even have to implement and call TEST() macro ;-).
> ...
> I tried to think of a way to do
> this, and they all involved some other system coming along and
> identifying the tests and code-generating a main function, which also
> seems like too much magic to me.

I thought that automatically generating the boilerplates from the visible list of test functions and piecing them together with a synthetic main was what was brought up as how libgit2 project does this? It does not sound all that involved and I do not find it a rocket science.

In any case, a well written framework soon becomes "magic" anyway. Our scripted test suite, back when Pasky and I invented it, was unknown to many people, would have looked very far away from any day-to-day shell scripts, and are full of magic. Modern versions gained even more magic than the what we had in the olden days. But I hear these days other projects imitate the pattern, so it may no longer so much "magic" to many audiences.

If we use a well-written framework for C unit tests, I suspect that the same thing would happen eventually. An important point is the "well-written" part, which needs to hide the ugly implementation details well without revealing it in corners. As Phillip said, a loop construct similar to for() that you are not allowed to break or continue may not qualify exactly for that reason.