Re: [Boost-users] [test] testing protected/private methods out of testsuits

Subject: Re: [Boost-users] [test] testing protected/private methods out of testsuits
From: Patrick Loney (Patrick.Loney_at_[hidden])
Date: 2008-09-22 04:05:39

> I tried to test protected/private class methods by declaring the
test->case-class as a friend of the class-to-test. 

Why are you trying to do this? In test driven development you should be
testing the interfaces not the internals, from Wikipedia:

"Some may object that using strict black box testing does not provide
access to private data and methods. This is intentional; as the software
evolves, you may find the implementation of a class changes
fundamentally. Remember a critical step of test-driven development is to
refactor. Refactoring may introduce changes which adds or removes
private members, or alters an existing member's type. These changes
ought not break existing tests. Unit tests that exploit glass box
testing are highly coupled to the production software; changing the
implementation of a class or module may mean you must also update or
discard existing tests, things which should never have to occur. For
this reason, glass box testing must be kept to the minimum possible.
White box testing should never be used in test-driven development."

Your private and protected methods should all be tested via calls to the
public methods.

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