1<a id="top"></a> 2# Why do we need yet another C++ test framework? 3 4Good question. For C++ there are quite a number of established frameworks, 5including (but not limited to), 6[Google Test](http://code.google.com/p/googletest/), 7[Boost.Test](http://www.boost.org/doc/libs/1_49_0/libs/test/doc/html/index.html), 8[CppUnit](http://sourceforge.net/apps/mediawiki/cppunit/index.php?title=Main_Page), 9[Cute](http://www.cute-test.com), 10[many, many more](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_unit_testing_frameworks#C.2B.2B). 11 12So what does Catch bring to the party that differentiates it from these? Apart from a Catchy name, of course. 13 14## Key Features 15 16* Quick and Really easy to get started. Just download catch.hpp, `#include` it and you're away. 17* No external dependencies. As long as you can compile C++11 and have a C++ standard library available. 18* Write test cases as, self-registering, functions (or methods, if you prefer). 19* Divide test cases into sections, each of which is run in isolation (eliminates the need for fixtures). 20* Use BDD-style Given-When-Then sections as well as traditional unit test cases. 21* Only one core assertion macro for comparisons. Standard C/C++ operators are used for the comparison - yet the full expression is decomposed and lhs and rhs values are logged. 22* Tests are named using free-form strings - no more couching names in legal identifiers. 23 24## Other core features 25 26* Tests can be tagged for easily running ad-hoc groups of tests. 27* Failures can (optionally) break into the debugger on Windows and Mac. 28* Output is through modular reporter objects. Basic textual and XML reporters are included. Custom reporters can easily be added. 29* JUnit xml output is supported for integration with third-party tools, such as CI servers. 30* A default main() function is provided, but you can supply your own for complete control (e.g. integration into your own test runner GUI). 31* A command line parser is provided and can still be used if you choose to provided your own main() function. 32* Catch can test itself. 33* Alternative assertion macro(s) report failures but don't abort the test case 34* Floating point tolerance comparisons are built in using an expressive Approx() syntax. 35* Internal and friendly macros are isolated so name clashes can be managed 36* Matchers 37 38## Who else is using Catch? 39 40See the list of [open source projects using Catch](opensource-users.md#top). 41 42See the [tutorial](tutorial.md#top) to get more of a taste of using Catch in practice 43 44--- 45 46[Home](Readme.md#top) 47