| <a id="top"></a> |
| # Why do we need yet another C++ test framework? |
| |
| Good question. For C++ there are quite a number of established frameworks, |
| including (but not limited to), |
| [Google Test](http://code.google.com/p/googletest/), |
| [Boost.Test](http://www.boost.org/doc/libs/1_49_0/libs/test/doc/html/index.html), |
| [CppUnit](http://sourceforge.net/apps/mediawiki/cppunit/index.php?title=Main_Page), |
| [Cute](http://www.cute-test.com), |
| [many, many more](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_unit_testing_frameworks#C.2B.2B). |
| |
| So what does Catch bring to the party that differentiates it from these? Apart from a Catchy name, of course. |
| |
| ## Key Features |
| |
| * Quick and Really easy to get started. Just download catch.hpp, `#include` it and you're away. |
| * No external dependencies. As long as you can compile C++11 and have a C++ standard library available. |
| * Write test cases as, self-registering, functions (or methods, if you prefer). |
| * Divide test cases into sections, each of which is run in isolation (eliminates the need for fixtures). |
| * Use BDD-style Given-When-Then sections as well as traditional unit test cases. |
| * Only one core assertion macro for comparisons. Standard C/C++ operators are used for the comparison - yet the full expression is decomposed and lhs and rhs values are logged. |
| * Tests are named using free-form strings - no more couching names in legal identifiers. |
| |
| ## Other core features |
| |
| * Tests can be tagged for easily running ad-hoc groups of tests. |
| * Failures can (optionally) break into the debugger on Windows and Mac. |
| * Output is through modular reporter objects. Basic textual and XML reporters are included. Custom reporters can easily be added. |
| * JUnit xml output is supported for integration with third-party tools, such as CI servers. |
| * A default main() function is provided, but you can supply your own for complete control (e.g. integration into your own test runner GUI). |
| * A command line parser is provided and can still be used if you choose to provided your own main() function. |
| * Catch can test itself. |
| * Alternative assertion macro(s) report failures but don't abort the test case |
| * Floating point tolerance comparisons are built in using an expressive Approx() syntax. |
| * Internal and friendly macros are isolated so name clashes can be managed |
| * Matchers |
| |
| ## Who else is using Catch? |
| |
| See the list of [open source projects using Catch](opensource-users.md#top). |
| |
| See the [tutorial](tutorial.md#top) to get more of a taste of using Catch in practice |
| |
| --- |
| |
| [Home](Readme.md#top) |
