The Google Test unit-testing framework is available in MySQL source trees and distributions as of MySQL 5.6.1. Google Test, like MyTAP, provides a unit-testing framework, but Google Test provides richer functionality, such as:

Google Test runs on many platforms. Some functionality is missing on some platforms (such as death tests and parameterized tests), so those features should not be used.

This section provides notes about using Google Test within the context of MySQL development. For general-purpose information about Google Test, see these resources:

Installing Google Test and Running Unit Tests

MySQL sources do not include Google Test. To install it so that you can use it, use one of these approaches:

Installing Google Test in individual source trees is the recommended method. The single-instance installation method can be used only if all MySQL builds on a machine take place in the same environment (same operating system, same compiler), for reasons discussed at https://groups.google.com/group/googletestframework/browse_thread/thread/668eff1cebf5309d?pli=1.

At configuration time, CMake or configure looks for gtest.h. The build process compiles all Google Test-based unit tests or ignores them, depending on whether gtest.h is found.

After the build has completed, run the unit tests using this command:

make test-unit

If you build using CMake, another way to run the tests is to change location into the unittest/gunit directory and run the ctest command. It need not be run with any options, but you can run it with the --help option to see what options are available.

For internal MySQL testing, PushBuild has been extended to install Google Test as a separate “package.” All trees named mysql-trunk.* are set up to depend on this package.

Writing Unit Tests for Google Test

The Google Test unit test files are located in the unittest/gunit directory. You can look at these files to see how tests are written. Here are some examples:

Those tests are built for both CMake and autotools builds. For future tests, it is preferable to write CMake targets. MySQL development is moving to CMake, and maintaining library and build dependencies is much easier with CMake than with autotools.

Most MyTAP-based tests are likely easily converted to Google Test. However, there might be low-level tests that absolutely must be run on every platform, and thus require MyTAP.

As currently implemented, the Google Test unit-test programs produce TAP output rather than the “plain” alternative. This can be disabled by using the --disable-tap-output command-line option when running a test executable.

To see what options are available, run a test executable with the --help option.