Boost unit test in separate cpp files

Question

I want to separate my Boost unit tests into separate .cpp files (e.g. Test1.cpp, Test2.cpp, Test3.cpp ... etc) So that I do not have 1000 tests in a single cpp file. So far I have been getting all kinds of errors when I try to build.

Test1.cpp

#define BOOST_TEST_MODULE MasterTestSuite
#include <boost/test/included/unit_test.hpp>
BOOST_AUTO_TEST_CASE(myTestCase)
{
  BOOST_CHECK(1 == 1);  
}

Test2.cpp

#define BOOST_TEST_MODULE MasterTestSuite2
#include <boost/test/included/unit_test.hpp>
BOOST_AUTO_TEST_CASE(myTestCase2)
{
  BOOST_CHECK(2 == 2);  
}

Answer 1

boost-test generates it's own main function when you define BOOST_TEST_MODULE, see: BOOST_TEST_MODULE. Some of your errors are likely to be because of this.

I put BOOST_TEST_MODULE in a separate file, e.g.:

test_main.cpp

#ifndef _MSC_VER
#define BOOST_TEST_DYN_LINK
#endif
#define BOOST_TEST_MAIN
#define BOOST_TEST_MODULE Main
#include <boost/test/unit_test.hpp>

And then use test suites to separate unit tests into separate .cpp files, with a test suite in each unit test file e.g.:

Test1.cpp

#include <boost/test/unit_test.hpp>

BOOST_AUTO_TEST_SUITE(MyTests)

BOOST_AUTO_TEST_CASE(myTestCase)
{
  BOOST_CHECK(1 == 1);
}

BOOST_AUTO_TEST_SUITE_END()

Test2.cpp

#include <boost/test/unit_test.hpp>

BOOST_AUTO_TEST_SUITE(MyTests2)

BOOST_AUTO_TEST_CASE(myTestCase2)
{
  BOOST_CHECK(2 == 2);
}

BOOST_AUTO_TEST_SUITE_END()

You can find an example of this approach in the tests directory here.