QTestLib Manual

The QTestLib framework, provided by Nokia, is a tool for unit testing Qt based applications and libraries. QTestLib provides all the functionality commonly found in unit testing frameworks as well as extensions for testing graphical user interfaces.

QTestLib Features

QTestLib is designed to ease the writing of unit tests for Qt based applications and libraries:

Feature	Details
Lightweight	QTestLib consists of about 6000 lines of code and 60 exported symbols.
Self-contained	QTestLib requires only a few symbols from the Qt Core library for non-gui testing.
Rapid testing	QTestLib needs no special test-runners; no special registration for tests.
Data-driven testing	A test can be executed multiple times with different test data.
Basic GUI testing	QTestLib offers functionality for mouse and keyboard simulation.
Benchmarking	QTestLib supports benchmarking and provides several measurement back-ends.
IDE friendly	QTestLib outputs messages that can be interpreted by Visual Studio and KDevelop.
Thread-safety	The error reporting is thread safe and atomic.
Type-safety	Extensive use of templates prevent errors introduced by implicit type casting.
Easily extendable	Custom types can easily be added to the test data and test output.

Note: For higher-level GUI and application testing needs, please see the Partner Directory for Qt testing products provided by Nokia partners.

QTestLib API

All public methods are in the QTest namespace. In addition, the QSignalSpy class provides easy introspection for Qt's signals and slots.

Using QTestLib

Creating a Test

To create a test, subclass QObject and add one or more private slots to it. Each private slot is a testfunction in your test. QTest::qExec() can be used to execute all testfunctions in the test object.

In addition, there are four private slots that are not treated as testfunctions. They will be executed by the testing framework and can be used to initialize and clean up either the entire test or the current test function.

• initTestCase() will be called before the first testfunction is executed.
• cleanupTestCase() will be called after the last testfunction was executed.
• init() will be called before each testfunction is executed.
• cleanup() will be called after every testfunction.

If initTestCase() fails, no testfunction will be executed. If init() fails, the following testfunction will not be executed, the test will proceed to the next testfunction.

Example:

 class MyFirstTest: public QObject
 {
     Q_OBJECT
 private slots:
     void initTestCase()
     { qDebug("called before everything else"); }
     void myFirstTest()
     { QVERIFY(1 == 1); }
     void mySecondTest()
     { QVERIFY(1 != 2); }
     void cleanupTestCase()
     { qDebug("called after myFirstTest and mySecondTest"); }
 };

For more examples, refer to the QTestLib Tutorial.

Building a Test

If you are using qmake as your build tool, just add the following to your project file:

 QT += testlib

If you are using other build tools, make sure that you add the location of the QTestLib header files to your include path (usually include/QtTest under your Qt installation directory). If you are using a release build of Qt, link your test to the QtTest library. For debug builds, use QtTest_debug.

See Writing a Unit Test for a step by step explanation.

QTestLib Command Line Arguments

Syntax

The syntax to execute an autotest takes the following simple form:

 testname [options] [testfunctions[:testdata]]...

Substitute testname with the name of your executable. testfunctions can contain names of test functions to be executed. If no testfunctions are passed, all tests are run. If you append the name of an entry in testdata, the test function will be run only with that test data.

For example:

 /myTestDirectory$ testQString toUpper

Runs the test function called toUpper with all available test data.

 /myTestDirectory$ testQString toUpper toInt:zero

Runs the toUpper test function with all available test data, and the toInt test function with the testdata called zero (if the specified test data doesn't exist, the associated test will fail).

 /myTestDirectory$ testMyWidget -vs -eventdelay 500

Runs the testMyWidget function test, outputs every signal emission and waits 500 milliseconds after each simulated mouse/keyboard event.

Options

The following command line arguments are understood:

• -help
  outputs the possible command line arguments and give some useful help.
• -functions
  outputs all test functions available in the test.
• -o filename
  write output to the specified file, rather than to standard output
• -silent
  silent output, only shows warnings, failures and minimal status messages
• -v1
  verbose output; outputs information on entering and exiting test functions.
• -v2
  extended verbose output; also outputs each QCOMPARE() and QVERIFY()
• -vs
  outputs every signal that gets emitted
• -xml
  outputs XML formatted results instead of plain text
• -lightxml
  outputs results as a stream of XML tags
• -eventdelay ms
  if no delay is specified for keyboard or mouse simulation (QTest::keyClick(), QTest::mouseClick() etc.), the value from this parameter (in milliseconds) is substituted.
• -keydelay ms
  like -eventdelay, but only influences keyboard simulation and not mouse simulation.
• -mousedelay ms
  like -eventdelay, but only influences mouse simulation and not keyboard simulation.
• -keyevent-verbose
  output more verbose output for keyboard simulation
• -maxwarnings numberBR sets the maximum number of warnings to output. 0 for unlimited, defaults to 2000.

Creating a Benchmark

To create a benchmark, follow the instructions for creating a test and then add a QBENCHMARK macro to the test function that you want to benchmark.

 class MyFirstBenchmark: public QObject
 {
     Q_OBJECT
 private slots:
     void myFirstBenchmark()
     {
         QString string1;
         QString string2;
         QBENCHMARK {
             string1.localeAwareCompare(string2);
         }
     }
 };

The code inside the QBENCHMARK macro will be measured, and possibly also repeated several times in order to get an accurate measurement. This depends on the selected measurement back-end. Several back-ends are available. They can be selected on the command line:

Name	Commmand-line Argument	Availability
Walltime	(default)	All platforms
CPU tick counter	-tickcounter	Windows, Mac OS X, Linux, many UNIX-like systems.
Valgrind/Callgrind	-callgrind	Linux (if installed)
Event Counter	-eventcounter	All platforms

In short, walltime is always available but requires many repetitions to get a useful result. Tick counters are usually available and can provide results with fewer repetitions, but can be susceptible to CPU frequency scaling issues. Valgrind provides exact results, but does not take I/O waits into account, and is only available on a limited number of platforms. Event counting is available on all platforms and it provides the number of events that were received by the event loop before they are sent to their corresponding targets (this might include non-Qt events).

Note: Depending on the device configuration, Tick counters on the Windows CE platform may not be as fine-grained, compared to other platforms. Devices that do not support high-resolution timers default to one-millisecond granularity.

See the chapter 5 in the QTestLib Tutorial for more benchmarking examples.

Using QTestLib remotely on Windows CE

cetest is a convenience application which helps the user to launch an application remotely on a Windows CE device or emulator.

It needs to be executed after the unit test has been successfully compiled.

Prior to launching, the following files are copied to the device:

• all Qt libraries the project links to
• QtRemote.dll
• the c runtime library specified during installation
• all files specified in the .pro file following the DEPLOYMENT rules.

Using cetest

Syntax

The syntax to execute an autotest takes the following simple form:

 cetest [options] ...

Options

cetest provides the same options as those for unit-testing on non cross-compiled platforms. See Command Line Arguments for more information.

The following commands are also included:

• -debug
  Test version compiled in debug mode.
• -release
  Test version compiled in release mode.
• -libpath path
  Target path to copy Qt libraries to.
• -qt-delete
  Delete Qt libraries after execution.
• -project-delete
  Delete project files after execution.
• -delete
  Delete project and Qt libraries after execution.
• -conf
  Specifies a qt.conf file to be deployed to remote directory.

Note: debug is the default build option.

QtRemote

QtRemote is a small library which is build after QTestLib. It allows the host system to create a process on a remote device and waits until its execution has been finished.

Requirements

cetest uses Microsoft ActiveSync to establish a remote connection between the host computer and the device. Thus header files and libraries are needed to compile cetest and QtRemote successfully.

Prior to installation of Qt, you need to set your INCLUDE and LIB environment variables properly.

A default installation of Windows Mobile 5 for Pocket PC can be obtained by:

 set INCLUDE=C:\Program Files\Windows CE Tools\wce500\Windows Mobile 5.0 Pocket PC SDK\Activesync\Inc;%INCLUDE%
 set LIB=C:\Program Files\Windows CE Tools\wce500\Windows Mobile 5.0 Pocket PC SDK\Activesync\Lib;%LIB%

Note that Qt will remember the path, so you do not need to set it again after switching the environments for cross-compilation.

3rd Party Code

The CPU tick counters used for benchmarking is licensed under the following license: (from src/testlib/3rdparty/cycle.h)