Check {No value for ‘VERSION’}: 3 Tutorial: Basic Unit Testing

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# 3 Tutorial: Basic Unit Testing

This tutorial will use the JUnit Test Infected article as a starting point. We will be creating a library to represent money, `libmoney`, that allows conversions between different currency types. The development style will be “test a little, code a little”, with unit test writing preceding coding. This constantly gives us insights into module usage, and also makes sure we are constantly thinking about how to test our code.

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## 3.1 How to Write a Test

Test writing using Check is very simple. The file in which the checks are defined must include ‘`check.h`’ as so:

    #include <check.h>

The basic unit test looks as follows:

    START_TEST (test_name)
    {
      /* unit test code */
    }
    END_TEST

The `START_TEST`/`END_TEST` pair are macros that setup basic structures to permit testing. It is a mistake to leave off the `END_TEST` marker; doing so produces all sorts of strange errors when the check is compiled.

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## 3.2 Setting Up the Money Build Using Autotools

Since we are creating a library to handle money, we will first create an interface in ‘`money.h`’, an implementation in ‘`money.c`’, and a place to store our unit tests, ‘`check_money.c`’. We want to integrate these core files into our build system, and will need some additional structure. To manage everything we’ll use Autoconf, Automake, and friends (collectively known as Autotools) for this example. Note that one could do something similar with ordinary Makefiles, or any other build system. It is in the authors’ opinion that it is generally easier to use Autotools than bare Makefiles, and they provide built-in support for running tests.

Note that this is not the place to explain how Autotools works. If you need help understanding what’s going on beyond the explanations here, the best place to start is probably Alexandre Duret-Lutz’s excellent Autotools tutorial.

The examples in this section are part of the Check distribution; you don’t need to spend time cutting and pasting or (worse) retyping them. Locate the Check documentation on your system and look in the ‘`example`’ directory. The standard directory for GNU/Linux distributions should be ‘`/usr/share/doc/check/example`’. This directory contains the final version reached the end of the tutorial. If you want to follow along, create backups of ‘`money.h`’, ‘`money.c`’, and ‘`check_money.c`’, and then delete the originals.

We set up a directory structure as follows:

    .
    |-- Makefile.am
    |-- README
    |-- configure.ac
    |-- src
    |   |-- Makefile.am
    |   |-- main.c
    |   |-- money.c
    |   `-- money.h
    `-- tests
        |-- Makefile.am
        `-- check_money.c

Note that this is the output of `tree`, a great directory visualization tool. The top-level ‘`Makefile.am`’ is simple; it merely tells Automake how to process sub-directories:

    SUBDIRS = src . tests

Note that `tests` comes last, because the code should be testing an already compiled library. ‘`configure.ac`’ is standard Autoconf boilerplate, as specified by the Autotools tutorial and as suggested by `autoscan`.

‘`src/Makefile.am`’ builds ‘`libmoney`’ as a Libtool archive, and links it to an application simply called `main`. The application’s behavior is not important to this tutorial; what’s important is that none of the functions we want to unit test appear in ‘`main.c`’; this probably means that the only function in ‘`main.c`’ should be `main()` itself. In order to test the whole application, unit testing is not appropriate: you should use a system testing tool like Autotest. If you really want to test `main()` using Check, rename it to something like `_myproject_main()` and write a wrapper around it.

The primary build instructions for our unit tests are in ‘`tests/Makefile.am`’:

    ## Process this file with automake to produce Makefile.in

    TESTS = check_money
    check_PROGRAMS = check_money
    check_money_SOURCES = check_money.c $(top_builddir)/src/money.h
    check_money_CFLAGS = @CHECK_CFLAGS@
    check_money_LDADD = $(top_builddir)/src/libmoney.la @CHECK_LIBS@

`TESTS` tells Automake which test programs to run for `make check`. Similarly, the `check_` prefix in `check_PROGRAMS` actually comes from Automake; it says to build these programs only when `make check` is run. (Recall that Automake’s `check` target is the origin of Check’s name.) The `check_money` test is a program that we will build from ‘`tests/check_money.c`’, linking it against both ‘`src/libmoney.la`’ and the installed ‘`libcheck.la`’ on our system. The appropriate compiler and linker flags for using Check are found in `@CHECK_CFLAGS@` and `@CHECK_LIBS@`, values defined by the `AM_PATH_CHECK` macro.

Now that all this infrastructure is out of the way, we can get on with development. ‘`src/money.h`’ should only contain standard C header boilerplate:

    /*
     * Check: a unit test framework for C
     * Copyright (C) 2001, 2002 Arien Malec
     *
     * This library is free software; you can redistribute it and/or
     * modify it under the terms of the GNU Lesser General Public
     * License as published by the Free Software Foundation; either
     * version 2.1 of the License, or (at your option) any later version.
     *
     * This library is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
     * but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
     * MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.  See the GNU
     * Lesser General Public License for more details.
     *
     * You should have received a copy of the GNU Lesser General Public
     * License along with this library; if not, write to the
     * Free Software Foundation, Inc., 51 Franklin St, Fifth Floor, Boston,
     * MA 02110-1301, USA.
     */

    #ifndef MONEY_H
    #define MONEY_H

    #endif /* MONEY_H */

‘`src/money.c`’ should be empty, and ‘`tests/check_money.c`’ should only contain an empty `main()` function:

    /*
     * Check: a unit test framework for C
     * Copyright (C) 2001, 2002 Arien Malec
     *
     * This library is free software; you can redistribute it and/or
     * modify it under the terms of the GNU Lesser General Public
     * License as published by the Free Software Foundation; either
     * version 2.1 of the License, or (at your option) any later version.
     *
     * This library is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
     * but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
     * MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.  See the GNU
     * Lesser General Public License for more details.
     *
     * You should have received a copy of the GNU Lesser General Public
     * License along with this library; if not, write to the
     * Free Software Foundation, Inc., 51 Franklin St, Fifth Floor, Boston,
     * MA 02110-1301, USA.
     */

    int main(void)
    {
        return 0;
    }

Create the GNU Build System for the project and then build ‘`main`’ and ‘`libmoney.la`’ as follows:

    $ autoreconf --install
    $ ./configure
    $ make

(`autoreconf` determines which commands are needed in order for `configure` to be created or brought up to date. Previously one would use a script called `autogen.sh` or `bootstrap`, but that practice is unnecessary now.)

Now build and run the `check_money` test with `make check`. If all goes well, `make` should report that our tests passed. No surprise, because there aren’t any tests to fail. If you have problems, make sure to see Supported Build Systems.

This was tested on the isadora distribution of Linux Mint GNU/Linux in November 2012, using Autoconf 2.65, Automake 1.11.1, and Libtool 2.2.6b. Please report any problems to check-devel AT lists.sourceforge.net.

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## 3.3 Setting Up the Money Build Using CMake

Since we are creating a library to handle money, we will first create an interface in ‘`money.h`’, an implementation in ‘`money.c`’, and a place to store our unit tests, ‘`check_money.c`’. We want to integrate these core files into our build system, and will need some additional structure. To manage everything we’ll use CMake for this example. Note that one could do something similar with ordinary Makefiles, or any other build system. It is in the authors’ opinion that it is generally easier to use CMake than bare Makefiles, and they provide built-in support for running tests.

Note that this is not the place to explain how CMake works. If you need help understanding what’s going on beyond the explanations here, the best place to start is probably the CMake project’s homepage.

The examples in this section are part of the Check distribution; you don’t need to spend time cutting and pasting or (worse) retyping them. Locate the Check documentation on your system and look in the ‘`example`’ directory, or look in the Check source. If on a GNU/Linux system the standard directory should be ‘`/usr/share/doc/check/example`’. This directory contains the final version reached the end of the tutorial. If you want to follow along, create backups of ‘`money.h`’, ‘`money.c`’, and ‘`check_money.c`’, and then delete the originals.

We set up a directory structure as follows:

    .
    |-- Makefile.am
    |-- README
    |-- CMakeLists.txt
    |-- cmake
    |   |-- config.h.in
    |   |-- FindCheck.cmake
    |-- src
    |   |-- CMakeLists.txt
    |   |-- main.c
    |   |-- money.c
    |   `-- money.h
    `-- tests
        |-- CMakeLists.txt
        `-- check_money.c

The top-level ‘`CMakeLists.txt`’ contains the configuration checks for available libraries and types, and also defines sub-directories to process. The ‘`cmake/FindCheck.cmake`’ file contains instructions for locating Check on the system and setting up the build to use it. If the system does not have pkg-config installed, ‘`cmake/FindCheck.cmake`’ may not be able to locate Check successfully. In this case, the install directory of Check must be located manually, and the following line added to ‘`tests/CMakeLists.txt`’ (assuming Check was installed under C:\\Program Files\\check:

    set(CHECK_INSTALL_DIR "C:/Program Files/check")

Note that `tests` comes last, because the code should be testing an already compiled library.

‘`src/CMakeLists.txt`’ builds ‘`libmoney`’ as an archive, and links it to an application simply called `main`. The application’s behavior is not important to this tutorial; what’s important is that none of the functions we want to unit test appear in ‘`main.c`’; this probably means that the only function in ‘`main.c`’ should be `main()` itself. In order to test the whole application, unit testing is not appropriate: you should use a system testing tool like Autotest. If you really want to test `main()` using Check, rename it to something like `_myproject_main()` and write a wrapper around it.

Now that all this infrastructure is out of the way, we can get on with development. ‘`src/money.h`’ should only contain standard C header boilerplate:

    /*
     * Check: a unit test framework for C
     * Copyright (C) 2001, 2002 Arien Malec
     *
     * This library is free software; you can redistribute it and/or
     * modify it under the terms of the GNU Lesser General Public
     * License as published by the Free Software Foundation; either
     * version 2.1 of the License, or (at your option) any later version.
     *
     * This library is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
     * but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
     * MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.  See the GNU
     * Lesser General Public License for more details.
     *
     * You should have received a copy of the GNU Lesser General Public
     * License along with this library; if not, write to the
     * Free Software Foundation, Inc., 51 Franklin St, Fifth Floor, Boston,
     * MA 02110-1301, USA.
     */

    #ifndef MONEY_H
    #define MONEY_H

    #endif /* MONEY_H */

‘`src/money.c`’ should be empty, and ‘`tests/check_money.c`’ should only contain an empty `main()` function:

    /*
     * Check: a unit test framework for C
     * Copyright (C) 2001, 2002 Arien Malec
     *
     * This library is free software; you can redistribute it and/or
     * modify it under the terms of the GNU Lesser General Public
     * License as published by the Free Software Foundation; either
     * version 2.1 of the License, or (at your option) any later version.
     *
     * This library is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
     * but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
     * MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.  See the GNU
     * Lesser General Public License for more details.
     *
     * You should have received a copy of the GNU Lesser General Public
     * License along with this library; if not, write to the
     * Free Software Foundation, Inc., 51 Franklin St, Fifth Floor, Boston,
     * MA 02110-1301, USA.
     */

    int main(void)
    {
        return 0;
    }

Create the CMake Build System for the project and then build ‘`main`’ and ‘`libmoney.la`’ as follows for Unix-compatible systems:

    $ cmake .
    $ make

and for MSVC on Windows:

    $ cmake -G "NMake Makefiles" .
    $ nmake

Now build and run the `check_money` test, with either `make test` on a Unix-compatible system or `nmake test` if on Windows using MSVC. If all goes well, the command should report that our tests passed. No surprise, because there aren’t any tests to fail.

This was tested on Windows 7 using CMake 2.8.12.1 and MSVC 16.00.30319.01/ Visual Studios 10 in February 2014. Please report any problems to check-devel AT lists.sourceforge.net.

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## 3.4 Test a Little, Code a Little

The Test Infected article starts out with a `Money` class, and so will we. Of course, we can’t do classes with C, but we don’t really need to. The Test Infected approach to writing code says that we should write the unit test before we write the code, and in this case, we will be even more dogmatic and doctrinaire than the authors of Test Infected (who clearly don’t really get this stuff, only being some of the originators of the Patterns approach to software development and OO design).

Here are the changes to ‘`check_money.c`’ for our first unit test:

    --- tests/check_money.1.c	2020-01-28 20:28:45.300203528 +0000
    +++ tests/check_money.2.c	2020-01-28 20:28:45.300203528 +0000
    @@ -1,24 +1,38 @@
     /*
      * Check: a unit test framework for C
      * Copyright (C) 2001, 2002 Arien Malec
      *
      * This library is free software; you can redistribute it and/or
      * modify it under the terms of the GNU Lesser General Public
      * License as published by the Free Software Foundation; either
      * version 2.1 of the License, or (at your option) any later version.
      *
      * This library is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
      * but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
      * MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.  See the GNU
      * Lesser General Public License for more details.
      *
      * You should have received a copy of the GNU Lesser General Public
      * License along with this library; if not, write to the
      * Free Software Foundation, Inc., 51 Franklin St, Fifth Floor, Boston,
      * MA 02110-1301, USA.
      */

    +#include <check.h>
    +#include "../src/money.h"
    +
    +START_TEST(test_money_create)
    +{
    +    Money *m;
    +
    +    m = money_create(5, "USD");
    +    ck_assert_int_eq(money_amount(m), 5);
    +    ck_assert_str_eq(money_currency(m), "USD");
    +    money_free(m);
    +}
    +END_TEST
    +
     int main(void)
     {
         return 0;
     }

A unit test should just chug along and complete. If it exits early, or is signaled, it will fail with a generic error message. (Note: it is conceivable that you expect an early exit, or a signal and there is functionality in Check to specifically assert that we should expect a signal or an early exit.) If we want to get some information about what failed, we need to use some calls that will point out a failure. Two such calls are `ck_assert_int_eq` (used to determine if two integers are equal) and `ck_assert_str_eq` (used to determine if two null terminated strings are equal). Both of these functions (actually macros) will signal an error if their arguments are not equal.

An alternative to using `ck_assert_int_eq` and `ck_assert_str_eq` is to write the expression under test directly using `ck_assert`. This takes one Boolean argument which must be True for the check to pass. The second test could be rewritten as follows:

    ck_assert(strcmp (money_currency (m), "USD") == 0);

`ck_assert` will find and report failures, but will not print any user supplied message in the unit test result. To print a user defined message along with any failures found, use `ck_assert_msg`. The first argument is a Boolean argument. The remaining arguments support `varargs` and accept `printf`-style format strings and arguments. This is especially useful while debugging. For example, the second test could be rewritten as:

    ck_assert_msg(strcmp (money_currency (m), "USD") == 0,
             "Was expecting a currency of USD, but found %s", money_currency (m));

If the Boolean argument is too complicated to elegantly express within `ck_assert()`, there are the alternate functions `ck_abort()` and `ck_abort_msg()` that unconditionally fail. The second test inside `test_money_create` above could be rewritten as follows:

    if (strcmp (money_currency (m), "USD") != 0)
      {
        ck_abort_msg ("Currency not set correctly on creation");
      }

For your convenience ck_assert, which does not accept a user supplied message, substitutes a suitable message for you. (This is also equivalent to passing a NULL message to ck_assert_msg). So you could also write a test as follows:

    ck_assert (money_amount (m) == 5);

This is equivalent to:

    ck_assert_msg (money_amount (m) == 5, NULL);

which will print the file, line number, and the message `"Assertion 'money_amount (m) == 5' failed"` if `money_amount (m) != 5`.

When we try to compile and run the test suite now using `make check`, we get a whole host of compilation errors. It may seem a bit strange to deliberately write code that won’t compile, but notice what we are doing: in creating the unit test, we are also defining requirements for the money interface. Compilation errors are, in a way, unit test failures of their own, telling us that the implementation does not match the specification. If all we do is edit the sources so that the unit test compiles, we are actually making progress, guided by the unit tests, so that’s what we will now do.

We will patch our header ‘`money.h`’ as follows:

    --- src/money.1.h	2020-01-28 20:28:45.300203528 +0000
    +++ src/money.2.h	2020-01-28 20:28:45.300203528 +0000
    @@ -1,24 +1,31 @@
     /*
      * Check: a unit test framework for C
      * Copyright (C) 2001, 2002 Arien Malec
      *
      * This library is free software; you can redistribute it and/or
      * modify it under the terms of the GNU Lesser General Public
      * License as published by the Free Software Foundation; either
      * version 2.1 of the License, or (at your option) any later version.
      *
      * This library is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
      * but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
      * MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.  See the GNU
      * Lesser General Public License for more details.
      *
      * You should have received a copy of the GNU Lesser General Public
      * License along with this library; if not, write to the
      * Free Software Foundation, Inc., 51 Franklin St, Fifth Floor, Boston,
      * MA 02110-1301, USA.
      */

     #ifndef MONEY_H
     #define MONEY_H

    +typedef struct Money Money;
    +
    +Money *money_create(int amount, char *currency);
    +int money_amount(Money * m);
    +char *money_currency(Money * m);
    +void money_free(Money * m);
    +
     #endif /* MONEY_H */

Our code compiles now, and again passes all of the tests. However, once we try to use the functions in `libmoney` in the `main()` of `check_money`, we’ll run into more problems, as they haven’t actually been implemented yet.

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## 3.5 Creating a Suite

To run unit tests with Check, we must create some test cases, aggregate them into a suite, and run them with a suite runner. That’s a bit of overhead, but it is mostly one-off. Here’s a diff for the new version of ‘`check_money.c`’. Note that we include stdlib.h to get the definitions of `EXIT_SUCCESS` and `EXIT_FAILURE`.

    --- tests/check_money.2.c	2020-01-28 20:28:45.300203528 +0000
    +++ tests/check_money.3.c	2020-01-28 20:28:45.300203528 +0000
    @@ -1,38 +1,65 @@
     /*
      * Check: a unit test framework for C
      * Copyright (C) 2001, 2002 Arien Malec
      *
      * This library is free software; you can redistribute it and/or
      * modify it under the terms of the GNU Lesser General Public
      * License as published by the Free Software Foundation; either
      * version 2.1 of the License, or (at your option) any later version.
      *
      * This library is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
      * but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
      * MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.  See the GNU
      * Lesser General Public License for more details.
      *
      * You should have received a copy of the GNU Lesser General Public
      * License along with this library; if not, write to the
      * Free Software Foundation, Inc., 51 Franklin St, Fifth Floor, Boston,
      * MA 02110-1301, USA.
      */

    +#include <stdlib.h>
     #include <check.h>
     #include "../src/money.h"

     START_TEST(test_money_create)
     {
         Money *m;

         m = money_create(5, "USD");
         ck_assert_int_eq(money_amount(m), 5);
         ck_assert_str_eq(money_currency(m), "USD");
         money_free(m);
     }
     END_TEST

    +Suite * money_suite(void)
    +{
    +    Suite *s;
    +    TCase *tc_core;
    +
    +    s = suite_create("Money");
    +
    +    /* Core test case */
    +    tc_core = tcase_create("Core");
    +
    +    tcase_add_test(tc_core, test_money_create);
    +    suite_add_tcase(s, tc_core);
    +
    +    return s;
    +}
    +
     int main(void)
     {
    -    return 0;
    +    int number_failed;
    +    Suite *s;
    +    SRunner *sr;
    +
    +    s = money_suite();
    +    sr = srunner_create(s);
    +
    +    srunner_run_all(sr, CK_NORMAL);
    +    number_failed = srunner_ntests_failed(sr);
    +    srunner_free(sr);
    +    return (number_failed == 0) ? EXIT_SUCCESS : EXIT_FAILURE;
     }

Most of the `money_suite()` code should be self-explanatory. We are creating a suite, creating a test case, adding the test case to the suite, and adding the unit test we created above to the test case. Why separate this off into a separate function, rather than inline it in `main()`? Because any new tests will get added in `money_suite()`, but nothing will need to change in `main()` for the rest of this example, so main will stay relatively clean and simple.

Unit tests are internally defined as static functions. This means that the code to add unit tests to test cases must be in the same compilation unit as the unit tests themselves. This provides another reason to put the creation of the test suite in a separate function: you may later want to keep one source file per suite; defining a uniquely named suite creation function allows you later to define a header file giving prototypes for all the suite creation functions, and encapsulate the details of where and how unit tests are defined behind those functions. See the test program defined for Check itself for an example of this strategy.

The code in `main()` bears some explanation. We are creating a suite runner object of type `SRunner` from the `Suite` we created in `money_suite()`. We then run the suite, using the `CK_NORMAL` flag to specify that we should print a summary of the run, and list any failures that may have occurred. We capture the number of failures that occurred during the run, and use that to decide how to return. The `check` target created by Automake uses the return value to decide whether the tests passed or failed.

Now that the tests are actually being run by `check_money`, we encounter linker errors again we try out `make check`. Try it for yourself and see. The reason is that the ‘`money.c`’ implementation of the ‘`money.h`’ interface hasn’t been created yet. Let’s go with the fastest solution possible and implement stubs for each of the functions in `money.c`. Here is the diff:

    --- src/money.1.c	2020-01-28 20:28:45.300203528 +0000
    +++ src/money.3.c	2020-01-28 20:28:45.300203528 +0000
    @@ -1,20 +1,42 @@
     /*
      * Check: a unit test framework for C
      * Copyright (C) 2001, 2002 Arien Malec
      *
      * This library is free software; you can redistribute it and/or
      * modify it under the terms of the GNU Lesser General Public
      * License as published by the Free Software Foundation; either
      * version 2.1 of the License, or (at your option) any later version.
      *
      * This library is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
      * but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
      * MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.  See the GNU
      * Lesser General Public License for more details.
      *
      * You should have received a copy of the GNU Lesser General Public
      * License along with this library; if not, write to the
      * Free Software Foundation, Inc., 51 Franklin St, Fifth Floor, Boston,
      * MA 02110-1301, USA.
      */

    +#include <stdlib.h>
    +#include "money.h"
    +
    +Money *money_create(int amount, char *currency)
    +{
    +    return NULL;
    +}
    +
    +int money_amount(Money * m)
    +{
    +    return 0;
    +}
    +
    +char *money_currency(Money * m)
    +{
    +    return NULL;
    +}
    +
    +void money_free(Money * m)
    +{
    +    return;
    +}

Note that we `#include <stdlib.h>` to get the definition of `NULL`. Now, the code compiles and links when we run `make check`, but our unit test fails. Still, this is progress, and we can focus on making the test pass.

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## 3.6 SRunner Output

The functions to run tests in an `SRunner` are defined as follows:

    void srunner_run_all (SRunner * sr, enum print_output print_mode);

    void srunner_run (SRunner *sr, const char *sname, const char *tcname,
                      enum print_output print_mode);

Those functions do two things:

1. They run all of the unit tests for the selected test cases defined for the selected suites in the SRunner, and collect the results in the SRunner. The determination of the selected test cases and suites depends on the specific function used.

   `srunner_run_all` will run all the defined test cases of all defined suites except if the environment variables `CK_RUN_CASE` or `CK_RUN_SUITE` are defined. If defined, those variables shall contain the name of a test suite or a test case, defining in that way the selected suite/test case.

   `srunner_run` will run the suite/case selected by the `sname` and `tcname` parameters. A value of `NULL` in some of those parameters means “any suite/case”.

2. They print the results according to the `print_mode` specified.

For SRunners that have already been run, there is also a separate printing function defined as follows:

    void srunner_print (SRunner *sr, enum print_output print_mode);

The enumeration values of `print_output` defined in Check that parameter `print_mode` can assume are as follows:

`CK_SILENT`

  Specifies that no output is to be generated. If you use this flag, you either need to programmatically examine the SRunner object, print separately, or use test logging (see section Test Logging.)

`CK_MINIMAL`

  Only a summary of the test run will be printed (number run, passed, failed, errors).

`CK_NORMAL`

  Prints the summary of the run, and prints one message per failed test.

`CK_VERBOSE`

  Prints the summary, and one message per test (passed or failed)

`CK_ENV`

  Gets the print mode from the environment variable `CK_VERBOSITY`, which can have the values "silent", "minimal", "normal", "verbose". If the variable is not found or the value is not recognized, the print mode is set to `CK_NORMAL`.

`CK_SUBUNIT`

  Prints running progress through the subunit test runner protocol. See ’subunit support’ under the Advanced Features section for more information.

With the `CK_NORMAL` flag specified in our `main()`, let’s rerun `make check` now. The output from the unit test is as follows:

    Running suite(s): Money
    0%: Checks: 1, Failures: 1, Errors: 0
    check_money.c:9:F:Core:test_money_create:0: Assertion 'money_amount (m)==5' failed:
    money_amount (m)==0, 5==5
    FAIL: check_money
    =====================================================
    1 of 1 test failed
    Please report to check-devel AT lists.sourceforge.net
    =====================================================

Note that the output from `make check` prior to Automake 1.13 will be the output of the unit test program. Starting with 1.13 Automake will run all unit test programs concurrently and store the output in log files. The output listed above should be present in a log file.

The first number in the summary line tells us that 0% of our tests passed, and the rest of the line tells us that there was one check in total, and of those checks, one failure and zero errors. The next line tells us exactly where that failure occurred, and what kind of failure it was (P for pass, F for failure, E for error).

After that we have some higher level output generated by Automake: the `check_money` program failed, and the bug-report address given in ‘`configure.ac`’ is printed.

Let’s implement the `money_amount` function, so that it will pass its tests. We first have to create a Money structure to hold the amount, and then implement the function to return the correct amount:

    --- src/money.3.c	2020-01-28 20:28:45.300203528 +0000
    +++ src/money.4.c	2020-01-28 20:28:45.300203528 +0000
    @@ -1,42 +1,47 @@
     /*
      * Check: a unit test framework for C
      * Copyright (C) 2001, 2002 Arien Malec
      *
      * This library is free software; you can redistribute it and/or
      * modify it under the terms of the GNU Lesser General Public
      * License as published by the Free Software Foundation; either
      * version 2.1 of the License, or (at your option) any later version.
      *
      * This library is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
      * but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
      * MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.  See the GNU
      * Lesser General Public License for more details.
      *
      * You should have received a copy of the GNU Lesser General Public
      * License along with this library; if not, write to the
      * Free Software Foundation, Inc., 51 Franklin St, Fifth Floor, Boston,
      * MA 02110-1301, USA.
      */

     #include <stdlib.h>
     #include "money.h"

    +struct Money
    +{
    +    int amount;
    +};
    +
     Money *money_create(int amount, char *currency)
     {
         return NULL;
     }

     int money_amount(Money * m)
     {
    -    return 0;
    +    return m->amount;
     }

     char *money_currency(Money * m)
     {
         return NULL;
     }

     void money_free(Money * m)
     {
         return;
     }

We will now rerun make check and… what’s this? The output is now as follows:

    Running suite(s): Money
    0%: Checks: 1, Failures: 0, Errors: 1
    check_money.c:5:E:Core:test_money_create:0: (after this point)
    Received signal 11 (Segmentation fault)

What does this mean? Note that we now have an error, rather than a failure. This means that our unit test either exited early, or was signaled. Next note that the failure message says “after this point”; This means that somewhere after the point noted (‘`check_money.c`’, line 5) there was a problem: signal 11 (a.k.a. segmentation fault). The last point reached is set on entry to the unit test, and after every call to the `ck_assert()`, `ck_abort()`, `ck_assert_int_*()`, `ck_assert_str_*()`, or the special function `mark_point()`. For example, if we wrote some test code as follows:

    stuff_that_works ();
    mark_point ();
    stuff_that_dies ();

then the point returned will be that marked by `mark_point()`.

The reason our test failed so horribly is that we haven’t implemented `money_create()` to create any `Money`. We’ll go ahead and implement that, the symmetric `money_free()`, and `money_currency()` too, in order to make our unit test pass again, here is a diff:

    --- src/money.4.c	2020-01-28 20:28:45.300203528 +0000
    +++ src/money.5.c	2020-01-28 20:28:45.300203528 +0000
    @@ -1,47 +1,58 @@
     /*
      * Check: a unit test framework for C
      * Copyright (C) 2001, 2002 Arien Malec
      *
      * This library is free software; you can redistribute it and/or
      * modify it under the terms of the GNU Lesser General Public
      * License as published by the Free Software Foundation; either
      * version 2.1 of the License, or (at your option) any later version.
      *
      * This library is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
      * but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
      * MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.  See the GNU
      * Lesser General Public License for more details.
      *
      * You should have received a copy of the GNU Lesser General Public
      * License along with this library; if not, write to the
      * Free Software Foundation, Inc., 51 Franklin St, Fifth Floor, Boston,
      * MA 02110-1301, USA.
      */

     #include <stdlib.h>
     #include "money.h"

     struct Money
     {
         int amount;
    +    char *currency;
     };

     Money *money_create(int amount, char *currency)
     {
    -    return NULL;
    +    Money *m = malloc(sizeof(Money));
    +
    +    if (m == NULL)
    +    {
    +        return NULL;
    +    }
    +
    +    m->amount = amount;
    +    m->currency = currency;
    +    return m;
     }

     int money_amount(Money * m)
     {
         return m->amount;
     }

     char *money_currency(Money * m)
     {
    -    return NULL;
    +    return m->currency;
     }

     void money_free(Money * m)
     {
    +    free(m);
         return;
     }

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