Roadmap

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Planned features for future releases - order changes constantly...

For 2.0:

  • improve compile times further
  • reporters
    • output to file
    • a system for writing custom reporters
    • ability to use multiple reporters at once (but only 1 to stdout)
    • a compact reporter
    • a progress reporter - or maybe just an option for the console reporter
    • an xml reporter (junit related stuff)
    • xUnit reporter
    • a listener interface - similar to a reporter - look at Catch
  • ability to have no output when everything succeeds
  • remove C++98 support
    • remove the config identifiers for C++11 features
    • use variadic templates where appropriate
    • update type lists to C++11
    • update traits - use declval, etc.
    • move initialization of fields from initializer lists to class bodies
    • update static code analysis - less warning suppressing
  • drop some config options - simplify!!!
  • option to output summary only
  • thread safety - asserts/subcases/captures should be safe to be used by multiple threads simultaneously
  • matchers - should investigate what they are - look at google test/mock and Catch (also predicates and boost test)
  • convolution support for the assertion macros (with a predicate)

For 2.1:

For 2.2:

For 3.0:

  • use modules - use std::string and whatever else comes from the standard - no more hand rolled traits and classes
  • minimize the use of the preprocessor

Things that are being considered but not part of the roadmap yet:

  • fix this: https://github.com/catchorg/Catch2/issues/1292
  • FakeIt mocking integration - like catch (also checkout this)
  • look into https://github.com/cpp-testing/GUnit - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NVrZjT5lW5o
  • consider the following 2 properties for the MSVC static code analyzer: EnableCppCoreCheck, EnableExperimentalCppCoreCheck
  • rpm package? like this: https://github.com/vietjtnguyen/argagg/blob/master/packaging/rpm/argagg.spec
  • get the current test case/section path - https://github.com/philsquared/Catch/issues/522
  • when no assertion is encountered in a test case it should fail - and should also add a SUCCEED() call
  • failure reporting should print out previous SECTIONs for data-driven testing - as requested here
  • Bitwise() class that has overloaded operators for comparison - to be used to check objects bitwise against each other
  • detect floating point exceptions
  • checkpoint/passpoint - like in boost test (also make all assert/subcase/logging macros to act as passpoints and print the last one on crashes or exceptions)
  • queries for the current test case - name (and probably decorators)
  • support for LibIdentify
  • add CHECKED_IF & friends: https://github.com/catchorg/Catch2/issues/1278
  • support for running tests in parallel in multiple threads
  • death tests - as in google test
  • config options
    • test case name uniqueness - reject the ones with identical names
  • command line options
    • ability to specify ASC/DESC for the order option
    • global timeout option (per test or per entire session?)
    • command line error handling/reporting
    • option to not print context info when the --success option is used
    • ability for the user to extend the command line - as requested here
    • option to list files in which there are test cases who match the current filters
    • option for filters to switch from "match any" to "match all" mode
    • option to list test suites and test cases in a tree view
    • add a "wait key" option (before and after tests) - as requested here
  • decorators for test cases and test suites- like in boost test
    • depends_on
    • precondition
    • fixture
    • label (tag) - with the ability to have multiple labels (tags) for a test case and also the ability to list them
    • run X times (should also multiply with (or just override) the global test run times)
    • throw an exception when incompatible decorators are given in the same list of decorators - like may_fail and should_fail
  • setup / teardown support
    • global setup / teardown - can be currently achieved by providing a custom main function
    • per test suite (block? only? and not all blocks of the same test suite?)
    • as decorators
    • see how it's done in boost test - with the fixture decorator
    • perhaps for fixtures in addition to the constructor / destructor - since throwing in the destructor might terminate the program
    • or just ignore all of this this - it would require globals or classes and inheritance - and we already have subcases
  • doctest in a GUI environment? with no console? APIs for attaching a console? querying if there is one? investigate...
  • runtime performance
    • look at this: https://github.com/catchorg/Catch2/issues/1086
    • startup - the set holding all registered tests should use a specialized allocator to minimize program startup time
    • failing - optimize createStream/freeStream to reuse a pool of ostringstream objects
  • ability to provide a temp folder that is cleared between each test case
  • make the _MESSAGE assert macros work with variadic arguments - and maybe write the ones for binary/unary/fast asserts as well
  • move from operator "<<" to "<=" for capturing the left operand when decomposing binary expressions with templates
  • think about silencing warnings about unused variables when DOCTEST_CONFIG_DISABLE is used - see commit 6b61e8aa3818c5ea100cedc1bb48a60ea10df6e8 or issue #61
  • think about optionally using <typeinfo> and libcxxabi for demangling so users don't have to use TYPE_TO_STRING()
  • handle more complex expressions - CHECK(foo() == 1 || bar() == 2);
  • add [[noreturn]] to MessageBuilder::react() - and actually make a separate function (react2) for the FAIL() case
  • think about using a string view of some sorts
  • benchmark against google test and boost test

Things that are very unlikely to enter the roadmap:

  • think about removing the binary asserts (leaving only the fast binary asserts) because normal asserts + no try/catch in asserts are almost the same
  • move the "react()" part (the one that throws for REQUIRE asserts - or for when "abort-after=" is reached) to a function call in the while() part of the asserts
  • stop using underscores for the begining of identifiers - the anonymous variables - against the standard...
  • templated fixture test cases
  • test with missed warning flags for GCC
  • utf8 / unicode ???
  • handle wchar strings???
  • hierarchical test suites - using a stack for the pushed ones
  • ability to specify the width of the terminal in terms of characters (for example 60 - less than 80 - the default)
  • ability to re-run only newly compiled tests based on time stamps using __DATE__ and __TIME__ - stored in some file
  • add underscores to all preprocessor identifiers not intended for use by the user
  • put everything from the detail namespace also in a nested anonymous namespace to make them with internal linkage
  • ability to put everything from doctest into an anonymous namespace - to allow the use of multiple different versions of doctest within the same binary (executable/dll) - like the stb libraries can

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