Writing a Makefile.am to invoke googletest unit tests

Question

I am trying to add my first unit test to an existing Open Source project. Specifically, I added a new class, called audio_manager:

src/audio/audio_manager.h
src/audio/audio_manager.cc

I created a src/test directory structure that mirrors the structure of the implementation files, and wrote my googletest unit tests:

src/test/audio/audio_manager.cc

Now, I am trying to set up my Makefile.am to compile and run the unit test:

src/test/audio/Makefile.am

I copied Makefile.am from:

src/audio/Makefile.am

Does anyone have a simple recipe for me, or is it to the cryptic automake documentation for me? :)

Answer 1

William's answer got me where I needed to go. Just for the sake of the community, here's what I ended up doing:

1. I moved my tests back into the main directory structure and prepended test_, as per William's suggestions.

2. I added a few lines to src/audio/Makefile.am to enable unit tests:

   # Unit tests
   noinst_PROGRAMS = test_audio_manager
   
   test_audio_manager_SOURCES  = $(libadonthell_audio_la_SOURCES) test_audio_manager.cc
   test_audio_manager_CXXFLAGS = $(libadonthell_audio_la_CXXFLAGS)
   test_audio_manager_LDADD    = $(libadonthell_audio_la_LIBADD) -lgtest
   
   TESTS = test_audio_manager
   

3. Now, running "make check" fires the unit tests!

All of this can be seen here: http://github.com/ksterker/adonthell/commit/aacdb0fe22f59e61ef0f5986827af180c56ae9f3

Answer 2

If the existing project already has a test structure in place, then you should just add:

TESTS += audio_manager

to the existing tests/Makefile.am. If the existing project does not have a test structure in place, you should run screaming for the hills.

If running for the hills is not acceptable, there's a fair bit of work in getting the test structure in place, but it's not insurmountable. You might prefer to make tests a sibling of src, but that's not necessary. It's probably easier to start with a fresh Makefile.am rather than copying the Makefile.am from src, but maybe not. Possibly, all you'll need to do is change lines of the form:

bin_PROGRAMS = ...

to

check_PROGRAMS = ...

add the line

TESTS = test-audio-manager

change the name of audio_manager.cc to test-audio-manager.cc (that's not strictly necessary, but will help maintainability. I changed _ to - purely out of personal preference) and add a

SUBDIRS = tests/audio

to src/Makefile.am. (If there's already a SUBDIRS directive, append to that assignment or use +=)

Answer 3

Complimenting the information in the other answers, you can also specify multiple tests to TESTS.

Regardless of how many tests you specify, you don't actually have to specify them twice, instead just set TESTS to $(check_PROGRAMS) - this can help to prevent an accidental situation of adding your test to check_PROGRAMS but forgetting to add it to TESTS, causing your new test to be added to the build, but never being run by make check:

# Unit tests
check_PROGRAMS = test_audio_manager

test_audio_manager_SOURCES  = test_audio_manager.cc

TESTS = $(check_PROGRAMS)

...or to do the same with multiple tests:

# Unit tests
check_PROGRAMS = test_audio_manager test_video_manager

test_audio_manager_SOURCES  = test_audio_manager.cc
test_video_manager_SOURCES  = test_video_manager.cc

TESTS = $(check_PROGRAMS)