Unit tests

We ensure the basic level of integrity by automatically building all repositories several times a day and running unit-tests. This can eliminate the following errors:

• General compilation errors caused by syntax errors, missing includes, wrong include paths.
• Missing files that are available locally but not checked into the repo.
• Hardcoded local paths for files required for build-tests.
• Depending on the unit-test coverage, this checks the correct functioning of the software.

Gtest

We use gtest (install from Ubuntu packages) for unit tests. In catkin and catkin simple, google-tests can be simply added as follows:

catkin_add_gtest(test_xyz test/xyz-test.cc)
target_link_libraries(test_xyz <project libraries>)

If you use catkin build, you can build and run unit tests as follows:

cd catkin_ws/build/<project>
make tests
make run_tests
make run_tests_<project>_gtest_test_xyz

Use the latter to only run the specified test.

Naming convention

• Keep all test-related source code in a folder called test in your package root.
• Make a separate test file for each class that you test.
• Call the Cmake target test_class and the source file class-test.cc (tab-completion VS readability)
• For the test case name, use the name of the tested class, suffixed by Test
• Use the same naming convention for fixtures that are local to the test file
• For fixtures that are shared between different test files, use the suffix Fixture instead.

Eigen checks

Consider Eigen checks if you are comparing Eigen objects and for a macro for main().