Unit testing

This document describes how to write and use unit tests for Arm Mbed OS.

Introduction

Unit tests test code in small sections on a host machine. Unlike other testing tools, unit testing doesn't require embedded hardware or need to build a full operating system. Because of this, unit testing can result in faster tests than other tools. Unit testing happens in a build environment where you test each C or C++ class or module in isolation. Build test suites into separate test binaries and stub all access outside to remove dependencies on any specific embedded hardware or software combination. This allows you to complete tests using native compilers on the build machine.

Prerequisites

Please install the following dependencies to use Mbed OS unit testing:

• GNU toolchains.
  • GCC 6 or later. We recommend you use MinGW-W64 on Windows, but any Windows port of the above GCC versions works. Default compilers can be used on Mac OS instead of GCC to shorten build times, but code coverage results can differ.
• CMake 3.0 or newer.
• Python 2.7.x, 3.5 or newer.
• Pip 10.0 or newer.
• Gcovr 4.1 or newer.
• Arm Mbed CLI 1.8.0 or newer.

Detailed instructions for supported operating systems are below.

Installing dependencies on Debian or Ubuntu

In a terminal window:

1. sudo apt-get -y install build-essential cmake

2. Install Python and Pip with:

   sudo apt-get -y install python python-setuptools
   sudo easy_install pip

3. Install Gcovr and Mbed CLI with pip install "gcovr>=4.1" mbed-cli.

Installing dependencies on macOS

In a terminal window:

1. Install Homebrew.
2. Install Xcode Command Line Tools with xcode-select --install.
3. Install CMake with: brew install cmake.

4. Install Python and Pip:

   brew install python
   sudo easy_install pip

5. Install Gcovr and Mbed CLI with pip install "gcovr>=4.1" mbed-cli.

6. (Optional) Install GCC with brew install gcc.

Installing dependencies on Windows

In a terminal window:

1. Download and install MinGW-W64 from SourceForge.
2. Download CMake binaries from https://cmake.org/download/, and run the installer.
3. Download Python 2.7 or Python 3 from https://www.python.org/getit/, and run the installer.
4. Add MinGW, CMake and Python into system PATH.
5. Install Gcovr and Mbed CLI with pip install "gcovr>=4.1" mbed-cli.

Test code structure

Find unit tests in the Mbed OS repository under the UNITTESTS folder. We recommend unit test files use an identical directory path as the file under test. This makes it easier to find unit tests for a particular class or a module. For example, if the file you're testing is some/example/path/ClassName.cpp, then all the test files are in the UNITTESTS/some/example/path/ClassName directory. Each test suite needs to have its own unittest.cmake file for test configuration.

All the class stubs should be located in the UNITTESTS/stubs directory. A single stub class can be used by multiple test suites and should follow the naming convention ClassName_stub.cpp for the source file, and ClassName_stub.h for the header file. Use the actual header files for the unit tests, and don't stub headers if possible. The stubbed headers reside in the UNITTESTS/target_h directory.

Test discovery

Registering unit tests to run happens automatically, and the test runner handles registration. However, test files do not automatically build. Build unit tests with a separate system that searches for unit tests under the UNITTESTS directory.

For the build system to find and build any test suite automatically, include a unit test configuration file named unittest.cmake for each unit test suite. This configuration file lists all the source files required for the test build.

Test names

The build system automatically generates names of test suites. The name is constructed by taking a relative file path from the UNITTESTS directory to the test directory and replacing path separators with dashes. For example, the test suite name for some/example/path/ClassName.cpp is some-example-path-ClassName. Suite names are used when deciding which test suites to run.

Unit testing with Mbed CLI

Mbed CLI supports unit tests through the mbed test --unittests command. For information on using Mbed CLI, please see the CLI documentation.

Writing unit tests

A unit tests suite consists of one or more test cases. The test cases should cover all the functions in a class under test. All the external dependencies are stubbed including the other classes in the same module. Avoid stubbing header files. Finally, analyze code coverage to ensure all code is tested, and no dead code is found.

Please see the documentation for Google Test to learn how to write unit tests using its framework. See the documentation for Google Mock if you want to write and use C++ mock classes instead of stubs.

Test suite configuration

Create two files in the test directory for each test suite:

• Unit test source file (test_ClassName.cpp).
• Unit test configuration file (unittest.cmake).

List all the required files for the build in the unittest.cmake file with paths relative to the UNITTESTS folder. Use the following variables to list the source files and include paths:

• unittest-includes: List of header include paths. You can use this to extend or overwrite default paths listed in UNITTESTS/CMakeLists.txt.
• unittest-sources: List of files under test.
• unittest-test-sources: List of test sources and stubs.

You can also set custom compiler flags and other configurations supported by CMake in unittest.cmake.

Example

With the following steps, you can write a simple unit test. In this example, rtos/Semaphore.cpp is a class under test.

1. Create a directory for unit test files in UNITTESTS/rtos/Semaphore.
2. Create a test configuration file UNITTESTS/rtos/Semaphore/unittest.cmake with the following content:

   set(unittest-sources
       ../rtos/Semaphore.cpp
   )
   
   set(unittest-test-sources
       stubs/mbed_assert_stub.c
       stubs/Kernel_stub.cpp
       rtos/Semaphore/test_Semaphore.cpp
   )

3. Stub all external dependencies. Create stubs UNITTESTS/stubs/mbed_assert_stub.c and UNITTESTS/stubs/Kernel_stub.cpp if they don't already exist.
4. Update header stubs with any missing type or function declarations.
5. Create a test source file UNITTESTS/rtos/Semaphore/test_Semaphore.cpp with the following content:

#include  "gtest/gtest.h"
#include  "rtos/Semaphore.h"

static osStatus_t retval = osOK;
static uint32_t count = 0;

// Test stubs
osStatus_t osSemaphoreAcquire(osSemaphoreId_t semaphore_id, uint32_t timeout)
{
    return retval;
}
osStatus_t osSemaphoreDelete(osSemaphoreId_t semaphore_id)
{
    return retval;
}
osStatus_t osSemaphoreRelease(osSemaphoreId_t semaphore_id)
{
    return retval;
}
uint32_t osSemaphoreGetCount(osSemaphoreId_t semaphore_id)
{
    return count;
}
osSemaphoreId_t osSemaphoreNew(uint32_t max_count, uint32_t initial_count, const osSemaphoreAttr_t *attr)
{
    return (void *)&count; // Just a dymmy reference
}

class  TestSemaphore : public  testing::Test {
protected:
    rtos::Semaphore *sem;

    virtual  void  SetUp()
    {
        sem = new rtos::Semaphore();
    }

    virtual  void  TearDown()
    {
        delete sem;
    }
};

TEST_F(TestSemaphore, constructor)
{
    EXPECT_TRUE(sem);
}

Building and running unit tests

Use Mbed CLI to build and run unit tests. For advanced use, you can run CMake and a Make program directly.

Build tests directly with CMake

1. Create a build directory mkdir UNITTESTS/build.
2. Move to the build directory cd UNITTESTS/build.
3. Run CMake using a relative path to UNITTESTS folder as the argument. So from UNITTESTS/build use cmake ..:
   • Add -g [generator] if generating other than Unix Makefiles such in case of MinGW use -g "MinGW Makefiles".
   • Add -DCMAKE_MAKE_PROGRAM=<value>, -DCMAKE_CXX_COMPILER=<value> and -DCMAKE_C_COMPILER=<value> to use a specific Make program and compilers.
   • Add -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Debug for a debug build.
   • Add -DCOVERAGE=True to add coverage compiler flags.
   • See the CMake manual for more information.
4. Run a Make program to build tests.

Run tests directly with CTest

Run a test binary in the build directory to run a unit test suite. To run multiple test suites at once, use the CTest test runner. Run CTest with ctest. Add -v to get results for each test case. See the CTest manual for more information.

Run tests with GUI test runner

1. Install gtest-runner according to the documentation.
2. Run gtest-runner.
3. Add test executables into the list and run.

Debugging

1. Use Mbed CLI to build a debug build. For advanced use, run CMake directly with -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Debug, and then run a Make program.
2. Run GDB with a test executable as an argument to debug unit tests.
3. Run tests with Valgrind to analyze the test memory profile.

Get code coverage

Use Mbed CLI to generate code coverage reports. For advanced use, follow these steps:

1. Run CMake with both -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Debug and -DCOVERAGE=True.
2. Run a Make program to build the tests.
3. Run the tests.
4. Run Gcovr or any other code coverage tool directly in the build directory.

Troubleshooting

Problem: Generic problems with CMake or with the build process.

• Solution: Delete the build directory. Make sure that CMake, g++, GCC and a Make program can be found in the path and are correct versions.

Problem: (Windows) Virus protection identifies files generated by CMake as malicious and quarantines the files.

• Solution: Restore false-positive files from the quarantine.

Problem: (Windows) Git with shell installation adds sh.exe to the path and then CMake throws an error: sh.exe was found in your PATH. For MinGW make to work correctly, sh.exe must NOT be in your path.

• Solution: Remove sh.exe from the system path.

Problem: (Mac OS) CMake compiler check fails on Mac OS Mojave when using GCC-8.

• Solution: Make sure gnm (binutils) is not installed. Uninstall binutils with brew uninstall binutils.