Notes for ndn-cxx developers

If you are new to the NDN software community, please read our Contributor's Guide.

Code style

ndn-cxx code is subject to ndn-cxx code style.

Licensing

Contributions to ndn-cxx must be licensed under the LGPL v3 or a compatible license. If you choose the LGPL v3, please use the following license boilerplate in all .hpp and .cpp files:

/* -*- Mode:C++; c-file-style:"gnu"; indent-tabs-mode:nil; -*- */
/*
 * Copyright (c) [Year(s)] [Copyright Holder(s)].
 *
 * This file is part of ndn-cxx library (NDN C++ library with eXperimental eXtensions).
 *
 * ndn-cxx library is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the
 * terms of the GNU Lesser General Public License as published by the Free Software
 * Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or (at your option) any later version.
 *
 * ndn-cxx library is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY
 * WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A
 * PARTICULAR PURPOSE.  See the GNU Lesser General Public License for more details.
 *
 * You should have received copies of the GNU General Public License and GNU Lesser
 * General Public License along with ndn-cxx, e.g., in COPYING.md file.  If not, see
 * <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/>.
 *
 * See AUTHORS.md for complete list of ndn-cxx authors and contributors.
 */

If you are affiliated to an NSF-supported NDN project institution, please use the NDN Team License Boilerplate.

Running unit tests

To run the unit tests, ndn-cxx needs to be built with unit test support and installed into the configured location. For example:

./waf configure --with-tests # --debug is also strongly recommended while developing
./waf
sudo ./waf install

Note: On Linux you also need to run sudo ldconfig to reconfigure dynamic loader run-time bindings.

The simplest way to run the tests is to launch the compiled binary without any parameters:

./build/unit-tests

The Boost.Test framework is very flexible and allows a number of run-time customization of what tests should be run. For example, it is possible to choose to run only a specific test suite, only a specific test case within a suite, or specific test cases within specific test suites:

# Run only Face test suite tests (tests/unit/face.t.cpp)
./build/unit-tests -t TestFace

# Run only test case ExpressInterestData from the same test suite
./build/unit-tests -t TestFace/ExpressInterestData

# Run Basic test case from all test suites
./build/unit-tests -t */Basic

By default, Boost.Test framework will produce verbose output only when a test case fails. If it is desired to see verbose output (result of each test assertion), add -l all option to ./build/unit-tests command. To see test progress, you can use -l test_suite, or -p to show a progress bar:

# Show report all log messages including the passed test notification
./build/unit-tests -l all

# Show test suite messages
./build/unit-tests -l test_suite

# Show nothing
./build/unit-tests -l nothing

# Show progress bar
./build/unit-tests -p

There are many more command line options available, information about which can be obtained either from the command line using the --help switch, or online on the Boost.Test website.

Warning: If you have customized parameters for NDN platform using client.conf in /etc/ndn or /usr/local/etc/ndn (or other @SYSCONFDIR@/etc if it was configured to custom path during ./waf configure), Face-related test cases may fail.