Re: [Groff] Suggested patch to post-html.cpp

[Robert Bocchino]

Hi Bertrand,

On Sep 22, 2014, at 2:05 AM, Bertrand Garrigues <address@hidden> wrote:

> Are you thinking of unit tests, using a test framework for C++, or more
> global tests (using for example shell script) ?

I was thinking of system-level tests, at least initially. For example, the 
grohtml postprocessor operates upon various kinds of tags. At this point I am 
not even certain what all those tags are for and how they are generated. So one 
thing I'd like to do is compile a list of all the macro sets/preprocessors that 
generate tags, and set up tests for each one. That would at least give some 
assurance that the grohtml tool chain is behaving properly, in a black-box kind 
of way. This kind of testing is necessarily coarse-grained, but I think it 
would be effective for the cost and is a logical first step.

> I think both are useful,
> but I was intending to study some parts of code and would be interested
> to have a C++ unit tests framework;

I agree it would be good to have unit tests eventually.  Getting to a 
comprehensive set of unit tests is a lot of work and requires a deep 
understanding of the code. On the other hand, I think it makes sense to focus 
on particular code paths that we are interested in, as you said, and work 
towards comprehensive unit tests as an eventual goal. 

> do you have any suggestions on the
> choice of a particular framework ? I am familiar with CUnit for C code,
> but for C++ there are just too many choices.

I do not have a lot of personal experience with C++ unit testing. Google test 
seems like it could be a good choice: it seems feature-rich, actively 
supported, and applicable to a broad range of platforms.

https://code.google.com/p/googletest/

Rob

> 
> Regards,
> 
> --
> Bertrand Garrigues

Robert L. Bocchino Jr.
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