find external test file for unit test by relative path c++ cmake guest

c++ unit-testing cmake googletest
Teancum picture Teancum · Aug 8, 2014 · Viewed 7.9k times · Source

What would be the proper way to access an external test file for the unit test of a c++ project? I am using CMake and Gtest.

This is a sample of the directory structure.

Project
   -src
       -test (unit tests here)
   -test-data (data file here)

Thanks!

Answer

Darien Pardinas picture Darien Pardinas · Mar 13, 2017

I prefer to find my test data relative to my executable test. To do so, I usually define a helper method in some TestHelpers.h and then pass the relative path of the file I'm looking to resolve.

inline std::string resolvePath(const std::string &relPath)
{
    namespace fs = std::tr2::sys;
    // or namespace fs = boost::filesystem;
    auto baseDir = fs::current_path();
    while (baseDir.has_parent_path())
    {
        auto combinePath = baseDir / relPath;
        if (fs::exists(combinePath))
        {
            return combinePath.string();
        }
        baseDir = baseDir.parent_path();
    }
    throw std::runtime_error("File not found!");
}

To use it, I go:

std::string foofullPath = resolvePath("test/data/foo.txt");

and that gives me a full path of the test file as long as my executing directory runs from on a descendant of the project's root directory.

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