Unit Testing Assistance in C++

Discovering tests in the current document

JetBrains Rider discovers unit tests right in the editor and adds the corresponding action indicators next to each item in the editor:

tip

If you are using the Google Mock framework to create mock classes, JetBrains Rider will help you generate Google Mock methods.

Run or debug tests in the current document

There are several ways to run or debug unit tests in the current document. You can use action indicators, main menu or shortcuts:

• To run or debug a single test or all tests in a test class, click the action indicator next to it or set the caret at the test and press Alt+Enter. In the action list, choose Run / Debug or Cover or Cover All for a test class.

• Alternatively, you can use the Run Unit Tests Ctrl+U, R / Debug Unit Tests Ctrl+U, D or Cover Unit Tests commands, which are also available in the main menu ( Tests) and in the context menu. These commands work differently depending on the caret position or selection in the editor:

  • To run or debug a single test , set the caret at the test name, or anywhere inside its declaration in the editor .

  • To run several tests, select the desired tests in the editor .

Whatever way you choose to run or debug tests, you will see the execution progress, results, and output in the Unit Tests window. If there is an open unit test session, the executed tests are added to that session. If there are no test sessions or the existing ones are locked, then a new tests session is created.

If necessary, you can always repeat execution or coverage analysis of the tests that you executed last by pressing Ctrl+U, U or choosing Tests | Repeat Previous Run in the menu.

You can also re-run tests that failed by pressing Ctrl+U, F or choosing Tests | Rerun Failed Tests in the menu.

Discover unit tests in solution

For unit test management, JetBrains Rider provides the Unit Tests window ( View | Tool Windows | Unit Tests). Using this window, you can explore and run, debug, or cover unit tests in the entire solution. Note that unit tests from a project only appear in the window after the project is built. Tests from currently opened files are updated automatically, new tests from the opened files appear in the unit test explorer as soon as you create them.

In the unit test explorer, you can:

• Explore tests in the solution: browse all unit tests in a tree view, search tests and filter by a substring, regroup unit tests by project, namespace, and so on.

• Navigate to source code of any test by double-clicking it in the view.

• Run, debug, or cover selected tests.

• Create unit tests sessions from selected tests and/or add selected items to the current test session.

Run or debug unit tests in project or solution

You can run or debug tests from the Unit Test Explorer or Solution Explorer. Unit Test Explorer gives you the advantage to see only tests , while when you use other windows, you need to know, which projects, files, and classes contain tests.

• To execute tests from Unit Test Explorer, select the desired tests and click Run Unit Tests Ctrl+U, R / Debug Unit Tests Ctrl+U, D or Cover Unit Tests on the toolbar.

  To select multiple tests, select a grouping node or click the desired items while holding down the Ctrl key. Alternatively, type a query string in the search box to filter out all non-matching tests before execution — in this case only the remaining matching tests will be executed.

• To run or debug all tests in solution, choose Tests | Run All Tests from Solution in the main menu or press Ctrl+U, L.

Whatever way you choose to run or debug tests, you will see the execution progress, results, and output in the Unit Tests window. If there is an open unit test session, the executed tests are added to that session. If there are no test sessions or the existing ones are locked, then a new tests session is created.

If necessary, you can always repeat execution or coverage analysis of the tests that you executed last by pressing Ctrl+U, U or choosing Tests | Repeat Previous Run in the menu.

You can also re-run tests that failed by pressing Ctrl+U, F or choosing Tests | Rerun Failed Tests in the menu.

Unit test sessions

You can group unit tests that target specific parts of your application into multiple unit test sessions. A unit test session can contain tests from different projects. You can have multiple test sessions and run them separately as needed. A single test can be included in several different test sessions.

For detailed instructions related to unit test sessions, see Unit test sessions.

Execution process

JetBrains Rider provides several ways to execute unit tests. Whichever way you choose, execution progress, test results, and output are displayed in the Unit Tests window .

As tests are running in a unit test session, the progress icon is displayed next to the currently executing test. You can run multiple unit test sessions simultaneously. However, when you debug tests, only one test session can be executed at a time.

When you run or debug unit tests, JetBrains Rider uses the Command and Working Directory configuration parameters specified in the project properties. To access these properties, right-click the project in the Solution Explorer and choose Properties | [Build Configuration] | Local Debugger.

Analyze execution results and output

When the execution is over, the results are visualized in the Unit Tests window.

The output pane (which you can place on the right or at the bottom using the Toggle output position button on the toolbar) displays output of the selected test.

By default, JetBrains Rider wraps long lines in the output according to the current width of the output area. If necessary, you choose not to wrap long lines by clearing the Wrap long lines in Unit Test Session output checkbox on the Build, Execution, Deployment | Unit Testing page of JetBrains Rider settings Ctrl+Alt+S.

Use the Group by selector on the toolbar to change grouping of the tests — you can either choose one of the predefined grouping modes in the upper part of the selector, such as Test Hierarchy, Project Structure, and so on, or use the lower part of the selector to choose a custom set of grouping properties.

On the status bar, you can see the total number of tests in the session as well as number of tests in different states:

By default, tests in all states are shown, but you can click the corresponding icons to filter tests by their state.

Status of each test in the Unit Test Sessions window is displayed with one of the following icons:

The same icons are used to display status of grouping items

The icons are also used on each session's tab to display the overall execution result of the sessions.

The corresponding icons above the test session tree show how many tests are in each of the states. The icon shows the total number of tests in the session.

Using these icons, you can filter the tree so that only tests in the corresponding status are displayed.

When your focus is in the Unit Tests window, you can use simplified shortcuts for unit testing actions. For example, you can use Ctrl+D instead of Ctrl+U, D for debugging selected tests. Here is the full list of extra shortcuts that work in the Unit Tests window:

• Shift+Enter — Run Selected Tests

• Ctrl+D — Debug Selected Tests

• Ctrl+Y — Run Current Session

• Alt+Shift+Insert — Create New Session

• Ctrl+Alt+Insert — Append Selected Tests to Session

• Delete — Remove Selected Tests

• Ctrl+L — Run All Tests from Solution