The CppUnit framework is used for unittesting C/C++ source code for
all sipX related projects. The CppUnit Cookbook is the general guide to creating unittests but specific
guidelines and information about extensions made to the CppUnit
framework are described in this document.

For any given source file named

src/foo/MyClass.cpp

,
place unittests in a file named

src/test/foo/MyClassTest.cpp

.

Use the source file TestTemplate.cpp
as a template for creating all new unittests. (hint: Copy

TestTemplate.cpp

to a new file called

MyClassTest.cpp

then search and replace

TestTemplate

with

MyClassTest

.)

Add your unittest to the testsuite that is run as part of the build
by listing it in the

src/test/Makefile.am

under the

testsuite_SOURCES

make variable. (TIP: To temporarily
isolate just your unittest, remove all other source file listings from
make variable except the files in the

sipxunit

directory. Alternatively you can create a separate target program with
just your unittest and source files from the

sipxunit

directory, just be sure NOT to check it in that way.)

If any one unittest fails, it will stop the build from succeeding.
In scenarios where you want to check in a failed
unittest to communicate a bug beyond your control to fix, you can use
the macros

KNOWN_BUG

and

KNOWN_FATAL_BUG

to
signify such issues. This will not break the build, but will report
errors to stdout. See TestUtilities.h
header file for more information.

libtool is used to build the testsuite, consequently you must use
libtool to invoke the a debugger on the testsuite. Example:

where the last argument is the path to the

testsuite

file
in the directory containing the

testsuite-....o

files generated from the tests.
Since the tests are built into shared libraries, you might not be able
to set breakpoints in them at the moment

gdb

starts,
since the shared libraries may not have yet been loaded. If so, use
the usual trick of

break main

then

run

to
force the executable preamble code to link in all the shared libraries.

You can also execute a subset of the tests by using the "sandbox"
feature. To use it, edit

Makefile.am

in the directory
containing the

.o

files. The

sandbox_SOURCE

variable lists the tests that will be included in the subset. Rebuild
the directory (including the

autoconf

and

configure

steps), then
run them under the debugger by doing:

It is recommended each unittest be run through tools like Valgrind,
Electric Fence and gcov to test for memory management and threading
issues and to determine unittest code coverage. These tools will be
used by automated, stress-testing machines so it's best if you use
these tools ahead of time.

Valgrind

Valgrind can detect many memory management and threading
bugs. See Valgrind HOWTO
for more information. To run unittests under valgrind:

Deciphering output printed to console will take some practice. You may
find section "4.2.4 How to Suppress Errors" of Valgrind HOWTO
helpful. Please email suggestions to dev list for ways to integrate
expected leaks and errors into project.

Electric Fence

Running the unittests under Electric Fence is still
experimental, but it has been known to find some issues. Install
Electric Fence according to documentation and simply link to
memory management library like so:

Best documentation is man page

man efence

. If you see
Electric Fence's initialization header printed to console when running
unittests then Electric Fence is compiled in and working. Errors will
surface as segmentation faults closer to points of bad memory
management. Run unittests thru

gdb

or similar debugger to
further diagnose issues.

gcov

It's important to analyze the code coverage of your unittests
on the targeted source code. To compile a unittest with code
coverage analysis built in, configure the project like so:

whenever the unittests are run, coverage will be captured. To inspect
coverage:

Where

<i>\{target\}</i>

is your library or binary
name. (hint: run

ls

in

src

directory.) Files
ending in

*.gcov

will be annotated listing of the source
code with the number of times each line has been executed or

#####

for lines that have not been executed.