CODEWITHSUNDEEP
c++unit-testingdynamic-analysisobject-state
user3693858
user3693858

Reputation: 21

Reconstruction of Object States in C++

I want to employ an automatic unit test generation approach in C++ with the help of LLVM. The approach should automatically acquire the states of specific objects during a dynamic analysis of the application under test (AUT). After the data has been recorded I want to write the test. Here, the test should reconstruct the objects with the recorded test data as a setup before executing the method/code under test.

With object states I mean all member variable values of an object including references to other objects (for which I also need to acquire and reconstruct the whole object state). However, since ALL member values include those of private member variables, I ran into a problem. From what I have learned, there is no way to access private member variables in C++. That is, unless the object type in question is a friend with any of "my object types" or provides direct access functions to its private members.

Actually, I can solve this problem for types which have been declared in the source code of the AUT. Here, I can use LLVM to instrument the types with the necessary code during compilation. However, I cannot do this for referenced types from precompiled libraries which the AUT uses.

Hence, my question: Have you any idea how I can record and reconstruct the full states of arbritrary objects for which I do not have the source code? Could direct copying of memory help?

Since my approach is actually basic (automatic) unit test generation, I'm sure there has to be way to implement this in C++. After all, such kinds of generators have already been implemented in Java and C#.

Upvotes: 2

Views: 392

Answers (1)

Tramboi
Tramboi

Reputation: 161

C++ isn't designed for this because there is no object introspection and serialization in the base language. Of course you can implement this yourself, but maybe you should use a framework that can help you, such as protobuf or Qt. The main point is this will have an big impact on the code you intend to test. I recommend using another approach, maybe writing code that actually sets up the object states in your tests, it will be much less intrusive.

Upvotes: 0

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