FIXTURES_REQUIRED¶
Specifies a list of fixtures the test requires. Fixture names are case sensitive and they are not required to have any similarity to test names.
Fixtures are a way to attach setup and cleanup tasks to a set of tests. If a
test requires a given fixture, then all tests marked as setup tasks for that
fixture will be executed first (once for the whole set of tests, not once per
test requiring the fixture). After all tests requiring a particular fixture
have completed, CTest will ensure all tests marked as cleanup tasks for that
fixture are then executed. Tests are marked as setup tasks with the
FIXTURES_SETUP property and as cleanup tasks with the
FIXTURES_CLEANUP property. If any of a fixture’s setup tests fail,
all tests listing that fixture in their FIXTURES_REQUIRED property will not
be executed. The cleanup tests for the fixture will always be executed, even if
some setup tests fail.
When CTest is asked to execute only a subset of tests (e.g. by the use of
regular expressions or when run with the --rerun-failed command line
option), it will automatically add any setup or cleanup tests for fixtures
required by any of the tests that are in the execution set. This behavior can
be overridden with the -FS, -FC and -FA command line options to
ctest(1) if desired.
Since setup and cleanup tasks are also tests, they can have an ordering
specified by the DEPENDS test property just like any other tests.
This can be exploited to implement setup or cleanup using multiple tests for a
single fixture to modularise setup or cleanup logic.
The concept of a fixture is different to that of a resource specified by
RESOURCE_LOCK, but they may be used together. A fixture defines a
set of tests which share setup and cleanup requirements, whereas a resource
lock has the effect of ensuring a particular set of tests do not run in
parallel. Some situations may need both, such as setting up a database,
serialising test access to that database and deleting the database again at the
end. For such cases, tests would populate both FIXTURES_REQUIRED and
RESOURCE_LOCK to combine the two behaviours. Names used for
RESOURCE_LOCK have no relationship with names of fixtures, so note
that a resource lock does not imply a fixture and vice versa.
Consider the following example which represents a database test scenario similar to that mentioned above:
add_test(NAME testsDone COMMAND emailResults)
add_test(NAME fooOnly COMMAND testFoo)
add_test(NAME dbOnly COMMAND testDb)
add_test(NAME dbWithFoo COMMAND testDbWithFoo)
add_test(NAME createDB COMMAND initDB)
add_test(NAME setupUsers COMMAND userCreation)
add_test(NAME cleanupDB COMMAND deleteDB)
add_test(NAME cleanupFoo COMMAND removeFoos)
set_tests_properties(setupUsers PROPERTIES DEPENDS createDB)
set_tests_properties(createDB PROPERTIES FIXTURES_SETUP DB)
set_tests_properties(setupUsers PROPERTIES FIXTURES_SETUP DB)
set_tests_properties(cleanupDB PROPERTIES FIXTURES_CLEANUP DB)
set_tests_properties(cleanupFoo PROPERTIES FIXTURES_CLEANUP Foo)
set_tests_properties(testsDone PROPERTIES FIXTURES_CLEANUP "DB;Foo")
set_tests_properties(fooOnly PROPERTIES FIXTURES_REQUIRED Foo)
set_tests_properties(dbOnly PROPERTIES FIXTURES_REQUIRED DB)
set_tests_properties(dbWithFoo PROPERTIES FIXTURES_REQUIRED "DB;Foo")
set_tests_properties(dbOnly dbWithFoo createDB setupUsers cleanupDB
PROPERTIES RESOURCE_LOCK DbAccess)
Key points from this example:
- Two fixtures are defined:
DBandFoo. Tests can require a single fixture asfooOnlyanddbOnlydo, or they can depend on multiple fixtures likedbWithFoodoes. - A
DEPENDSrelationship is set up to ensuresetupUsershappens aftercreateDB, both of which are setup tests for theDBfixture and will therefore be executed before thedbOnlyanddbWithFootests automatically. - No explicit
DEPENDSrelationships were needed to make the setup tests run before or the cleanup tests run after the regular tests. - The
Foofixture has no setup tests defined, only a single cleanup test. testsDoneis a cleanup test for both theDBandFoofixtures. Therefore, it will only execute once regular tests for both fixtures have finished (i.e. afterfooOnly,dbOnlyanddbWithFoo). NoDEPENDSrelationship was specified fortestsDone, so it is free to run before, after or concurrently with other cleanup tests for either fixture.- The setup and cleanup tests never list the fixtures they are for in their own
FIXTURES_REQUIREDproperty, as that would result in a dependency on themselves and be considered an error.