cfix cfix 1.6 released, simplifies authoring of multi-threaded tests

A new release of cfix, the unit testing framework for C and C++, is now available for download. Besides some minor enhancements like extending the maximum permitted fixture name, cfix 1.6 introduces a major new feature, Anonymous Thread Auto-Registration.

Since its very first release, cfix has supported multi-threaded test cases, i.e. test cases that spawn child threads, each of which potentially making use of the various assertion statements like CFIX_ASSERT. To make this work and ensure that failing assertions are handled properly, however, usage of CfixCreateThread (rather than the native Win32 CreateThread) was mandatory when spawning such threads.

Although using CfixCreateThread (or CfixCreateSystemThread in case of kernel mode code) remains the preferred way to create child threads, there are situations where usage of this API is not possible – for example, when the child threads are created by libraries such as boost.

To support such scenarios, cfix now allows you to annotate a fixture to enable Anonymous Thread Auto-Registration, which means that newly spawned threads are automatically registered with cfix – no usage of CfixCreateThread required. Thanks to this feature, writing multi-threaded tests becomes straightforward – and integrating with libraries such as boost does not pose a problem any more.

For more details about this feature, please refer to the respective section in the cfix documentation.

As always, updated binaries and source code are available on Sourceforge.

Any opinions expressed on this blog are Johannes' own. Refer to the respective vendor’s product documentation for authoritative information.
« Back to home