Re: [Boost-users] [Test] How to Access Private Data from a Test

Subject: Re: [Boost-users] [Test] How to Access Private Data from a Test
From: Merrill Cornish (merrill.cornish_at_[hidden])
Date: 2015-06-25 17:02:10

On 6/25/2015 3:52 PM, Jürgen Hunold wrote:
> In my opinion, a test should never access private data. But there are times
> and legacy code where I had no other choice, too.
The classes I am testing use the PIMPL idiom.  Therefore, at a bare 
minimum, the tests have to access the private pointer in the public 
class that points to the accompanying private class.  Since all of the 
class's data is inside the private class, it make it extremely difficult 
to write unit tests that determine  if the class state is correct.  I 
see no value in the purist notion that I should have to jump through 
hundreds of hoops deducing the internal state /just/ so I can say my 
test never accessed any private data.