So, there I'm writing some library and desided to have a proper unit-testing for it (like TDD and so on). QtTest framework looked suitable to start with. The library itself is fine, so is the test.
But when I added both the library and the test project to my job project, CI build surprisingly failed. It occured that the test executable (LibraryTest.exe or similar on Linux) was being copied:
My test project settings added this behavior to the "install" build stage, there they are (important ones):
QT += core testlib
# The problem is below
CONFIG += c++11 qt warn_on depend_includepath #testcase
CONFIG -= app_bundle
LIBS *= -L$$PWD -lmylibrary # not exact, does not matter
TARGET = LibraryTest
SOURCES += \
tst_my_library_test.cpp
DEFINES *= QT_FORCE_ASSERTS
DESTDIR = $$PWD/bin
As you can see, after commenting out CONFIG += testcase the executable is not copied somewhere anymore. I've read that this configuration option is used for automated tests, that looks useful, but nothing is written about any special install stage. The test executable exists in the DESTDIR just fine, so it is not some accident error.
My question is: why is it happening? Can I specify some other folder? Automation is usefull, but even if implemented it would be probably bound to some more convenient directory.
Am I cooking the QtTest wrong? Thanks in advance for your attention.
Okay, after hacking the tests in my own way and getting enough time to study the problem thoroughly it occured that Qt's tests are designed to be used in a quite another way than I've thought.
It was obvious, that the testcase's makefile differs from the regular one, but the official documentation just stated the following:
For testcase projects, qmake will insert a check target into the generated Makefile. This target will run the application. The test is considered to pass if it terminates with an exit code equal to zero.
This gave a hint, what exactly resulted in makefile having extra install_target: first FORCE with strange and wrong file copying, but didn't explain the behavior deeper.
After some more seraching I found the following here:
Note also that Qt tests have only been tested with a non-installing Qt (the -prefix $PWD option above). The test project files override the make install target, so they are not installable. And Qt doesn't work at all if it's not at its installation path.
As far as my project uses heavilly the install build step and the tests were part of the project tree, it explained the problem.