Error with EXPECT_EQ for sum of double or float

suma picture suma · Feb 28, 2013 · Viewed 36.6k times · Source

I am unable to understand why the test case failed in case of summing double numbers or floats. It works very finely for the integer data type.

//the method in simple_method.h

double sum ( double a, double b)
{
    double res = a+b;
    return res;
}

// the test case for this method

TEST(simpleSum, sumOfFloat)
{
    EXPECT_EQ(4.56, sum(0.56, 4.0));
}

// the output is

Running main() from gtest_main.cc
[==========] Running 1 test from 1 test case.
[----------] Global test environment set-up.
[----------] 1 test from simpleSum
[ RUN      ] simpleSum.sumOfFloat
/home/pcadmin/Desktop/so/so3/simple_method_test.cpp:7: Failure
Value of: sum(0.56, 4.0)
  Actual: 4.56
Expected: 4.56
[  FAILED  ] simpleSum.sumOfFloat (0 ms)
[----------] 1 test from simpleSum (0 ms total)

[----------] Global test environment tear-down
[==========] 1 test from 1 test case ran. (0 ms total)
[  PASSED  ] 0 tests.
[  FAILED  ] 1 test, listed below:
[  FAILED  ] simpleSum.sumOfFloat

 1 FAILED TEST

Answer

congusbongus picture congusbongus · Feb 28, 2013

Use EXPECT_NEAR or the DoubleEq matcher instead. Floating point operations can lead to rounding errors which makes the results ever so slightly different.