Write more unit tests & add code coverage tests

[ghutchis]

Handling the GUI for testing is tricky, but as seen in #1564 there are issues in the core and io modules that need more unit testing.

Since there are tools to help generate tests for methods, it would be great to expand the unit tests and improve coverage.

I'm marking this as a good first issue, since the test framework is already set up and there are many unit tests already.

[ghutchis]

If someone has ideas for automating GUI tests with Qt, please add some comments!

[chinmay7016]

We can use Squish

[ghutchis]

@chinmay7016 - Squish is a commercial product - last I checked it was US$7,000 per year.

[ayush2804]

What can I refer to understand the testing framework so that I can write more unit test?

[SharanRP]

Selenium??

[Himanshuu23]

If someone has ideas for automating GUI tests with Qt, please add some comments!

Hi Sir! I researched a bit for some softwares based upon what companies are currently using and cost as well, we can use any one out of Playwright or Katalon Studio. As both are open are source but as it is testing at an advanced level we might have to purchase for some addition features. Both are really good and well-known but KATALON IS CHEAPER, so i would suggest using that more. But i suggested Playwright as well because it sometimes depends which testing software is more compatible with our device which reduces hassle after implementation. So, i gave an alternative for Katalon Studios as well.

[ghutchis]

We're not going to rely on a commercial product for testing. It needs to be deployable at scale.

[perminder-17]

We're not going to rely on a commercial product for testing. It needs to be deployable at scale.

Expanding unit test coverage is crucial, and I'm considering tackling this task once the blur feature is added. Are there any plans to incorporate visual testing in the future?

[ghutchis]

We actually already have several visual tests through ctest. There's an old blog about it here: https://www.kitware.com/using-vtks-image-regression-tests-in-avogadro-2/

[ghutchis]

BTW, adding coverage to ctest is fairly easy:
https://clehaxze.tw/gemlog/2022/06-28-coverage-testing-with-cmake-and-gcov.gmi

We'd just want a GitHub action that uses -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Debug -DCMAKE_CXX_FLAGS_DEBUG="-g -fprofile-arcs -ftest-coverage" and then runs ctest -T Test -T Coverage to get the coverage results.