CTA++ Integration to Visual Studio

(This integration assumes Visual Studio 6.0)

What is CTA++/VSI

When CTA++ is used on a Windows platform with Visual C++ the use of CTA++ is significantly eased with an add-on component called CTA++/Visual Studio Integration (CTA++/VSI).

It provides a wizard helping the use of CTA++. The actual testing (what to test, with what kind of test cases, what are the expected results of the test runs, etc.) is as difficult and challenging as it has always been. CTA++/VSI helps you to concentrate on the "intelligence part" of the testing. The wizard does much of the test bed building for you. CTA++/VSI facilitates:

Generating portions of the test bed and setting up its infrastructure into a Visual Studio project
Allowing you to edit in the "intelligence logic" of the tests straight in the Visual Studio environment using its source editor
Running and debugging the test bed straight in the Visual Studio environment and capturing the test results
Viewing the test result in textual and HTML format straight from the Visual Studio
Should you need to use a code coverage tool, the Testwell CTC++, Test Coverage Analyzer for C/C++, is just a few mouse clicks away (see more CTC++ integration to Visual Studio).

Using CTA++/VSI, the starting point

Here we show one CTA++/VSI use scenario. We have somewhere the files

list.h (the interface of the code under test, contains a couple of classes)
list_bug.cpp (the implementation file of the code under test, contains some bugs)
memory.h (an interface of a couple of functions that are called from list_bug.cpp)

First we create a new Visual Studio project (here vsList, a Win32 Console Application) and add these files to the project. The code under test (list_bug.cpp) compiles as such. The following screenshots show also the file list.cpp. In this demo it is the non-buggy version of the code under test. It is also added to the project but excluded from the project build.

CTA++/VSI Settings

Then we take the CTA++/VSI into play. We adjust the project settings (for example add the necessary CTA++ run-time library to the project) so that the project could be a CTA++ test bed project. It is done by clicking the "Tw" button, where the test bed type is selected (the CTA++ run-time library variant needs to be selected according to the other settings of the project, whether old or new streams are used, etc.)

CTA++/VSI Generate

Next we use CTA++/VSI to generate the test bed main program, some test cases to it and the stubs based on the memory.h file. Again the "Tw" button is clicked and the "Generate" tab is selected. The usage looks as follows:

We use this pane a couple of times:

To generate the initial test driver (the file CTA_vsList_drv.cpp, which gets added to the project)
To generate the test case functions (their skeletons) to the test driver file
To generate the test data file (CTA_vsList_drv.dat, its skeleton)
To generate the stubs file (CTA_memory.h_stb.inc)

The actual "testing intelligence" is edited to these files by the tester using the Visual Studio IDE's source editor.

The test bed is compiled and linked as usual by Visual Studio.

CTA++/VSI Run

Once we have edited some desired "intelligence logic" into the generated test case functions and stubs, and once the test bed is compiled, we are ready to run the test bed. It is done as follows:

The above "Run" pane is effectively just a GUI wrapper for running the testbed.exe program straight from the command line. The fields in the "Run" pane correspond to the command-line options of the test bed executable. The test bed can be run and debugged by normal Visual Studio means, too.

CTA++/VSI Report

After some test bed runs, the test results can be viewed. The trace file, here CTA_vsList_trc.txt, can be seen directly in the Visual Studio GUI. There is also a "Report" tab for seeing the HTML representation of the trace file and for some other operations on it. The "Report" tab looks as follows:

When an HTML report is asked, the resultant HTML view of the test bed run can be seen here.

In this use scenario the code under test and the test driver code were compiled and linked to one program, to the test bed. A typical use scenario is also a situtation, where the code under test is in a separate .DLL and the test bed project/the test bed executable is the "test execution engine" for testing the .DLL.

In summary, CTA++ integration to Visual Studio provides a very easy-to-use way to build CTA++ test beds in the Visual Studio environment.

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last updated: 19.01.2004

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CTA++ – Developer Studio Integration

CTA++ Integration to Visual Studio