Friend class

[roverken]

Hi

I am trying to test private methods by setting my test fixture as a
friend of the class with the private methods, however for each test in
the test fixture google test creates a new class which must also be
set as a friend.

Is there any easier way to do this where I can set the whole test
fixture as a friend somehow?

Thanks

[Josh Kelley]

Because Google Test implements tests as subclasses and C++ doesn't permit extending friendship to an entire class hierarchy, there's no prepackaged way of doing this.  However, there are several techniques you can use that are a lot easier than making each test a friend.  The Google Test Advanced Guide has more details:

http://code.google.com/p/googletest/wiki/GoogleTestAdvancedGuide#Testing_Private_Code

--
Josh Kelley

[Likai Liu]

I personally like to use a thin derivative class like this:

class Foo {
friend class FooForTesting;
};

class FooForTesting : public Foo {
public:
// exposes otherwise private/protected members and methods in Foo.
};

Rather than testing Foo, you will test FooForTesting instead. The
FooForTesting class makes it obvious which internal parts of Foo you
are relying on for the tests.

liulk