Test libraries¶

GOOGLETEST · ENV:NATIVE · MOCKS · ONE TEST FILE

MeshCore has one test environment, one test file and one tested function. This chapter describes how it is set up and how small it is — as a figure, not as a judgement.

[!NOTE] Source. This page was verified against the firmware itself: MeshCore v1.16.0, commit 03b6ef4, 28 July 2026 — files platformio.ini r.158-168, test/test_utils/test_tohex.cpp and test/mocks/.

How MeshCore calls this group¶

The test environment stands apart from all the others. It does not inherit from [arduino_base], uses no Arduino framework and compiles almost none of the firmware:

platformio.ini r.158-168

[env:native]
platform = native
build_flags = -std=c++17
  -I src
  -I test/mocks
test_build_src = yes
build_src_filter =
  -<*>
  +<../src/Utils.cpp>
lib_deps =
  google/googletest @ 1.17.0

Four things stand out. platform = native means: compile for the machine you are working on, not for a microcontroller. The build_src_filter first excludes everything and then admits one file, src/Utils.cpp. The include path puts test/mocks ahead of the real libraries. And googletest is pinned exactly to 1.17.0.

google/googletest¶

googletest is Google's C++ testing framework. You write a test as a TEST(group, name) block containing checks such as EXPECT_STREQ and EXPECT_EQ; the framework collects them, runs them and reports what failed. It is not an Arduino library — the registry package contains no library.properties or library.json, and it runs here on an ordinary computer.

The only test file is test/test_utils/test_tohex.cpp:

test/test_utils/test_tohex.cpp r.1-15

#include <gtest/gtest.h>
#include "Utils.h"

using namespace mesh;

#define HEX_BUFFER_SIZE(input) (sizeof(input) * 2 + 1)

TEST(UtilsToHex, ConvertSingleByte) {
    uint8_t input[] = {0xAB};
    char output[HEX_BUFFER_SIZE(input)];

    Utils::toHex(output, input, sizeof(input));

    EXPECT_STREQ("AB", output);
}

Function under test: Utils::toHex, which converts bytes to a hexadecimal string.

The mocks¶

src/Utils.cpp includes <AES.h> and <SHA256.h> from rweather/Crypto. That library is an Arduino library and does not simply compile on an ordinary computer. test/mocks/ therefore holds replacements: AES.h, SHA256.h and Stream.h. The -I test/mocks in the build flags makes the compiler find those before the real ones.

The consequence is that the test build does not test the cryptographic code — it tests toHex in an environment where crypto and Stream are empty.

What the test coverage is¶

In figures, at commit 03b6ef4:

	Count
Test environments	1 (`[env:native]`)
Test files	1
Firmware files compiled in	1 (`src/Utils.cpp`)
Tested functions	1 (`Utils::toHex`)
Mocks	3 (`AES.h`, `SHA256.h`, `Stream.h`)

For comparison: the repo holds 590 source files with extension .h, .hpp, .c, .cpp or .ino.

Overview¶

Library	Version	Environment	Route
`google/googletest`	`1.17.0`	`[env:native]`	registry, pinned exactly

Sources¶

Translated from Dutch by Anthropic Claude