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diff --git a/docs/why-catch.md b/docs/why-catch.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..93488d2 --- /dev/null +++ b/docs/why-catch.md @@ -0,0 +1,42 @@ +# Why do we need yet another C++ test framework? + +Good question. For C++ there are quite a number of established frameworks, including (but not limited to), [CppUnit](http://sourceforge.net/apps/mediawiki/cppunit/index.php?title=Main_Page), [Google Test](http://code.google.com/p/googletest/), [Boost.Test](http://www.boost.org/doc/libs/1_49_0/libs/test/doc/html/index.html), [Aeryn](https://launchpad.net/aeryn), [Cute](http://r2.ifs.hsr.ch/cute), [Fructose](http://fructose.sourceforge.net/) and [many, many more](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_unit_testing_frameworks#C.2B.2B). Even for Objective-C there are a few, including OCUnit - which now comes bundled with XCode. + +So what does Catch bring to the party that differentiates it from these? Apart from a Catchy name, of course. + +## Key Features + +* Really easy to get started. Just download catch.hpp, #include it and you're away. +* No external dependencies. As long as you can compile C++98 and have a C++ standard library available. +* Write test cases as, self-registering, functions or methods. +* Divide test cases into sections, each of which is run in isolation (eliminates the need for fixtures!) +* Use BDD-style Given-When-Then sections as well as traditional unit test cases. +* Only one core assertion macro for comparisons. Standard C/C++ operators are used for the comparison - yet the full expression is decomposed and lhs and rhs values are logged. + +## Other core features + +* Tests are named using free-form strings - no more couching names in legal identifiers. +* Tests can be tagged for easily running ad-hoc groups of tests. +* Failures can (optionally) break into the debugger on Windows and Mac. +* Output is through modular reporter objects. Basic textual and XML reporters are included. Custom reporters can easily be added. +* JUnit xml output is supported for integration with third-party tools, such as CI servers. +* A default main() function is provided (in a header), but you can supply your own for complete control (e.g. integration into your own test runner GUI). +* A command line parser is provided and can still be used if you choose to provided your own main() function. +* Catch can test itself. +* Alternative assertion macro(s) report failures but don't abort the test case +* Floating point tolerance comparisons are built in using an expressive Approx() syntax. +* Internal and friendly macros are isolated so name clashes can be managed +* Support for Matchers (early stages) + +## Objective-C-specific features + +* Automatically detects if you are using it from an Objective-C project +* Works with and without ARC with no additional configuration +* Implement test fixtures using Obj-C classes too (like OCUnit) +* Additional built in matchers that work with Obj-C types (e.g. string matchers) + +See the [tutorial](tutorial.md) to get more of a taste of using CATCH in practice + +--- + +[Home](Readme.md)
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