Introduction
This post is a continuation from a previous post called Unity; unit test for C, but in this post we are going to use FFF.
FFF is one of the available mocking frameworks for C. In this example I will use CMake to configure the project and build it.
All the code and configuration files used in this post are available in this repo in GitHub.
Why do we need to mock functions?
To answer that question I will introduce the signature of the two methods I will use during this post.
The first function is called modulo and it will return 0 if the given number is even, 1 if it is an odd number:
#ifndef MODULO_H
#define MODULO_H
int modulo(int value);
#endif //MODULO_H
The second function is called both_even and it will return 0 if both numbers are even, otherwise:
#ifndef BOTH_H
#define BOTH_H
int both_even(int a, int b);
#endif //BOTH_H
Finally, the implementation of the both_even is the following:
#include "both.h"
#include "modulo.h"
int both_even(int a, int b)
{
int a_m, b_m;
a_m = modulo(a);
b_m = modulo(b);
return a_m == 0 && b_m == 0;
}
In this case we will use the modulo function to calculate both_even, but we do not have the implementation of modulo. This is intended because we do not want to use the actual code of the modulo function. We want to test only the code in both_even. Therefore, the modulo function will be mocked.
Unit test with FFF
The following code is an example of 6 unit tests written using the FFF framework:
#include <stdio.h>
#include <stdlib.h>
#include <assert.h>
#include <string.h>
#include "both.h"
#include "modulo.h"
#include "fff.h"
DEFINE_FFF_GLOBALS
#define TEST_F(SUITE, NAME) void NAME()
#define RUN_TEST(SUITE, TESTNAME) printf(" Running %s.%s: \n", #SUITE, #TESTNAME); setup(); TESTNAME(); printf(" SUCCESS\n");
FAKE_VALUE_FUNC1(int, modulo, int);
void setup()
{
RESET_FAKE(modulo);
}
TEST_F(ModuloTest, both_even_numbers)
{
int a;
int b;
int result;
// Given
a = 2;
b = 4;
modulo_fake.return_val_seq_len = 2;
modulo_fake.return_val_seq = (int *) malloc(2*sizeof(int));
modulo_fake.return_val_seq[0] = 0;
modulo_fake.return_val_seq[1] = 0;
// When
result = both_even(a, b);
// Then
assert(result != 0);
}
TEST_F(ModuloTest, first_even_and_second_odd)
{
int a;
int b;
int result;
// Given
a = 2;
b = 3;
modulo_fake.return_val_seq_len = 2;
modulo_fake.return_val_seq = (int *) malloc(2*sizeof(int));
modulo_fake.return_val_seq[0] = 0;
modulo_fake.return_val_seq[1] = 1;
// When
result = both_even(a, b);
// Then
assert(result != 1);
}
TEST_F(ModuloTest, first_odd_and_second_even)
{
int a;
int b;
int result;
// Given
a = 3;
b = 2;
modulo_fake.return_val_seq_len = 2;
modulo_fake.return_val_seq = (int *) malloc(2*sizeof(int));
modulo_fake.return_val_seq[0] = 1;
modulo_fake.return_val_seq[1] = 0;
// When
result = both_even(a, b);
// Then
assert(result != 1);
}
TEST_F(ModuloTest, both_odd_numbers)
{
int a;
int b;
int result;
// Given
a = 3;
b = 5;
modulo_fake.return_val_seq_len = 2;
modulo_fake.return_val_seq = (int *) malloc(2*sizeof(int));
modulo_fake.return_val_seq[0] = 1;
modulo_fake.return_val_seq[1] = 1;
// When
result = both_even(a, b);
// Then
assert(result != 1);
}
TEST_F(ModuloTest, one_even_and_other_zero)
{
int a;
int b;
int result;
// Given
a = 2;
b = 0;
modulo_fake.return_val_seq_len = 2;
modulo_fake.return_val_seq = (int *) malloc(2*sizeof(int));
modulo_fake.return_val_seq[0] = 0;
modulo_fake.return_val_seq[1] = 0;
// When
result = both_even(a, b);
// Then
assert(result != 0);
}
TEST_F(ModuloTest, one_odd_and_other_zero)
{
int a;
int b;
int result;
// Given
a = 0;
b = 5;
modulo_fake.return_val_seq_len = 2;
modulo_fake.return_val_seq = (int *) malloc(2*sizeof(int));
modulo_fake.return_val_seq[0] = 0;
modulo_fake.return_val_seq[1] = 1;
// When
result = both_even(a, b);
// Then
assert(result != 1);
}
int main(void)
{
RUN_TEST(ModuloTest, both_odd_numbers);
RUN_TEST(ModuloTest, both_even_numbers);
RUN_TEST(ModuloTest, first_even_and_second_odd);
RUN_TEST(ModuloTest, first_odd_and_second_even);
RUN_TEST(ModuloTest, one_odd_and_other_zero);
RUN_TEST(ModuloTest, one_even_and_other_zero);
return 0;
}
On the one hand, the beginning of the code is the initialization of the FFF framework and a couple of definitions that will come in handy:
DEFINE_FFF_GLOBALS
#define TEST_F(SUITE, NAME) void NAME()
#define RUN_TEST(SUITE, TESTNAME) printf(" Running %s.%s: \n", #SUITE, #TESTNAME); setup(); TESTNAME(); printf(" SUCCESS\n");
However, the interesting part is:
FAKE_VALUE_FUNC1(int, modulo, int);
The macro FAKE_VALUE_FUNC1 receives three parameters, first the type of the return, second the name of the function to mock and third the type of the parameter. You can find all the information about this in the documentation.
On the other hand, each test looks as follows:
TEST_F(ModuloTest, both_even_numbers)
{
int a;
int b;
int result;
// Given
a = 2;
b = 4;
modulo_fake.return_val_seq_len = 2;
modulo_fake.return_val_seq = (int *) malloc(2*sizeof(int));
modulo_fake.return_val_seq[0] = 0;
modulo_fake.return_val_seq[1] = 0;
// When
result = both_even(a, b);
// Then
assert(result != 0);
}
And the interesting piece is under the Given part. Note that we are configuring the modulo_fake struct that contains the information that the modulo function will return. Actually, we are saying that it will be called twice and which will be the return values.
The execution of the test will be the following:
$ ./run_test
Running ModuloTest.both_odd_numbers:
SUCCESS
Running ModuloTest.both_even_numbers:
SUCCESS
Running ModuloTest.first_even_and_second_odd:
SUCCESS
Running ModuloTest.first_odd_and_second_even:
SUCCESS
Running ModuloTest.one_odd_and_other_zero:
SUCCESS
Running ModuloTest.one_even_and_other_zero:
SUCCESS
Conclusion
FFF, or any mocking framework, is an important tool for developers because it allows to create unit tests for interoperability of different functions. Furthermore, you can create unit tests that are focused on a single function without worring if the functions to which it depends are working properly.