| CTEST(1) | CMake | CTEST(1) |
ctest - CTest Command-Line Reference
ctest [<options>] ctest <path-to-source> <path-to-build> --build-generator <generator>
[<options>...] [-- <build-options>...] [--test-command <test>] ctest {-D <dashboard> | -M <model> -T <action> | -S <script> | -SP <script>}
[-- <dashboard-options>...]
The “ctest” executable is the CMake test driver program. CMake-generated build trees created for projects that use the ENABLE_TESTING and ADD_TEST commands have testing support. This program will run the tests and report results.
Some CMake-generated build trees can have multiple build configurations in the same tree. This option can be used to specify which one should be tested. Example configurations are “Debug” and “Release”.
When the output of ctest is being sent directly to a terminal, the progress through the set of tests is reported by updating the same line rather than printing start and end messages for each test on new lines. This can significantly reduce the verbosity of the test output. Test completion messages are still output on their own line for failed tests and the final test summary will also still be logged.
This option can also be enabled by setting the environment variable CTEST_PROGRESS_OUTPUT.
Test output is normally suppressed and only summary information is displayed. This option will show all test output.
Test output is normally suppressed and only summary information is displayed. This option will show even more test output.
This feature will result in a large number of output that is mostly useful for debugging dashboard problems.
This option allows CTest to resume a test set execution that was previously interrupted. If no interruption occurred, the -F option will have no effect.
This option tells CTest to run the tests in parallel using given number of jobs. This option can also be set by setting the CTEST_PARALLEL_LEVEL environment variable.
This option can be used with the PROCESSORS test property.
See Label and Subproject Summary.
When ctest is run as a Dashboard Client this sets the TestLoad option of the CTest Test Step.
This option will suppress all the output. The output log file will still be generated if the --output-log is specified. Options such as --verbose, --extra-verbose, and --debug are ignored if --quiet is specified.
This option tells CTest to write all its output to a log file.
This option tells CTest to list the tests that would be run but not actually run them. Useful in conjunction with the -R and -E options.
This option tells CTest to run only the tests whose labels match the given regular expression.
This option tells CTest to run only the tests whose names match the given regular expression.
This option tells CTest to NOT run the tests whose names match the given regular expression.
This option tells CTest to NOT run the tests whose labels match the given regular expression.
If a test in the set of tests to be executed requires a particular fixture, that fixture’s setup and cleanup tests would normally be added to the test set automatically. This option prevents adding setup or cleanup tests for fixtures matching the <regex>. Note that all other fixture behavior is retained, including test dependencies and skipping tests that have fixture setup tests that fail.
This option tells CTest to act as a CDash client and perform a dashboard test. All tests are <Mode><Test>, where Mode can be Experimental, Nightly, and Continuous, and Test can be Start, Update, Configure, Build, Test, Coverage, and Submit.
See Dashboard Client.
Pass in variable values on the command line. Use in conjunction with -S to pass variable values to a dashboard script. Parsing -D arguments as variable values is only attempted if the value following -D does not match any of the known dashboard types.
This option tells CTest to act as a CDash client where the <model> can be Experimental, Nightly, and Continuous. Combining -M and -T is similar to -D.
See Dashboard Client.
This option tells CTest to act as a CDash client and perform some action such as start, build, test etc. See Dashboard Client Steps for the full list of actions. Combining -M and -T is similar to -D.
See Dashboard Client.
This option tells CTest to load in a configuration script which sets a number of parameters such as the binary and source directories. Then CTest will do what is required to create and run a dashboard. This option basically sets up a dashboard and then runs ctest -D with the appropriate options.
See Dashboard Client.
This option does the same operations as -S but it will do them in a separate process. This is primarily useful in cases where the script may modify the environment and you do not want the modified environment to impact other -S scripts.
See Dashboard Client.
This option causes CTest to run tests starting at number Start, ending at number End, and incrementing by Stride. Any additional numbers after Stride are considered individual test numbers. Start, End,or stride can be empty. Optionally a file can be given that contains the same syntax as the command line.
When both -R and -I are specified by default the intersection of tests are run. By specifying -U the union of tests is run instead.
This option tells CTest to perform only the tests that failed during its previous run. When this option is specified, CTest ignores all other options intended to modify the list of tests to run (-L, -R, -E, -LE, -I, etc). In the event that CTest runs and no tests fail, subsequent calls to CTest with the --rerun-failed option will run the set of tests that most recently failed (if any).
This is useful in finding sporadic failures in test cases.
Set the maximum width for each test name to show in the output. This allows the user to widen the output to avoid clipping the test name which can be very annoying.
This option causes CTest to run tests in either an interactive mode or a non-interactive mode. On Windows this means that in non-interactive mode, all system debug pop up windows are blocked. In dashboard mode (Experimental, Nightly, Continuous), the default is non-interactive. When just running tests not for a dashboard the default is to allow popups and interactive debugging.
This option tells CTest not to print summary information for each label associated with the tests run. If there are no labels on the tests, nothing extra is printed.
See Label and Subproject Summary.
This option tells CTest not to print summary information for each subproject associated with the tests run. If there are no subprojects on the tests, nothing extra is printed.
See Label and Subproject Summary.
--build-and-test See Build and Test Mode.
By default CTest uses configuration options from configuration file. This option will overwrite the configuration option.
By default CTest will run child CTest instances within the same process. If this behavior is not desired, this argument will enforce new processes for child CTest processes.
This option will run the tests in a random order. It is commonly used to detect implicit dependencies in a test suite.
This option will set a global timeout on all tests that do not already have a timeout set on them.
Set a real time of day at which all tests should timeout. Example: 7:00:00 -0400. Any time format understood by the curl date parser is accepted. Local time is assumed if no timezone is specified.
This option will not run any tests, it will simply print the list of all labels associated with the test set.
Usage describes the basic command line interface and its options.
If a file is specified, the version is written into it. The help is printed to a named <f>ile if given.
All manuals are printed in a human-readable text format. The help is printed to a named <f>ile if given.
The specified manual is printed in a human-readable text format. The help is printed to a named <f>ile if given.
The list contains all manuals for which help may be obtained by using the --help-manual option followed by a manual name. The help is printed to a named <f>ile if given.
The cmake-commands(7) manual entry for <cmd> is printed in a human-readable text format. The help is printed to a named <f>ile if given.
The list contains all commands for which help may be obtained by using the --help-command option followed by a command name. The help is printed to a named <f>ile if given.
The cmake-commands(7) manual is printed in a human-readable text format. The help is printed to a named <f>ile if given.
The cmake-modules(7) manual entry for <mod> is printed in a human-readable text format. The help is printed to a named <f>ile if given.
The list contains all modules for which help may be obtained by using the --help-module option followed by a module name. The help is printed to a named <f>ile if given.
The cmake-modules(7) manual is printed in a human-readable text format. The help is printed to a named <f>ile if given.
The cmake-policies(7) manual entry for <cmp> is printed in a human-readable text format. The help is printed to a named <f>ile if given.
The list contains all policies for which help may be obtained by using the --help-policy option followed by a policy name. The help is printed to a named <f>ile if given.
The cmake-policies(7) manual is printed in a human-readable text format. The help is printed to a named <f>ile if given.
The cmake-properties(7) manual entries for <prop> are printed in a human-readable text format. The help is printed to a named <f>ile if given.
The list contains all properties for which help may be obtained by using the --help-property option followed by a property name. The help is printed to a named <f>ile if given.
The cmake-properties(7) manual is printed in a human-readable text format. The help is printed to a named <f>ile if given.
The cmake-variables(7) manual entry for <var> is printed in a human-readable text format. The help is printed to a named <f>ile if given.
The list contains all variables for which help may be obtained by using the --help-variable option followed by a variable name. The help is printed to a named <f>ile if given.
The cmake-variables(7) manual is printed in a human-readable text format. The help is printed to a named <f>ile if given.
CTest prints timing summary information for each label and subproject associated with the tests run. The label time summary will not include labels that are mapped to subprojects.
When the PROCESSORS test property is set, CTest will display a weighted test timing result in label and subproject summaries. The time is reported with sec*proc instead of just sec.
The weighted time summary reported for each label or subproject j is computed as:
Weighted Time Summary for Label/Subproject j =
sum(raw_test_time[j,i] * num_processors[j,i], i=1...num_tests[j]) for labels/subprojects j=1...total
where:
Therefore, the weighted time summary for each label or subproject represents the amount of time that CTest gave to run the tests for each label or subproject and gives a good representation of the total expense of the tests for each label or subproject when compared to other labels or subprojects.
For example, if “SubprojectA” showed “100 sec*proc” and “SubprojectB” showed “10 sec*proc”, then CTest allocated approximately 10 times the CPU/core time to run the tests for “SubprojectA” than for “SubprojectB” (e.g. so if effort is going to be expended to reduce the cost of the test suite for the whole project, then reducing the cost of the test suite for “SubprojectA” would likely have a larger impact than effort to reduce the cost of the test suite for “SubprojectB”).
CTest provides a command-line signature to configure (i.e. run cmake on), build, and/or execute a test:
ctest --build-and-test <path-to-source> <path-to-build>
--build-generator <generator>
[<options>...]
[--build-options <opts>...]
[--test-command <command> [<args>...]]
The configure and test steps are optional. The arguments to this command line are the source and binary directories. The --build-generator option must be provided to use --build-and-test. If --test-command is specified then that will be run after the build is complete. Other options that affect this mode include:
If left out the all target is built.
Skip the cmake step.
Directory where programs will be after it has been compiled.
CTest can operate as a client for the CDash software quality dashboard application. As a dashboard client, CTest performs a sequence of steps to configure, build, and test software, and then submits the results to a CDash server. The command-line signature used to submit to CDash is:
ctest (-D <dashboard> | -M <model> -T <action> | -S <script> | -SP <script>)
[-- <dashboard-options>...]
Options for Dashboard Client include:
Submit dashboard to specified track instead of default one. By default, the dashboard is submitted to Nightly, Experimental, or Continuous track, but by specifying this option, the track can be arbitrary.
This option tells CTest to include a notes file when submitting dashboard.
This is useful if the build will not finish in one day.
This option will submit extra files to the dashboard.
This option will force CTest to use HTTP 1.0 to submit files to the dashboard, instead of HTTP 1.1.
This flag will turn off automatic compression of test output. Use this to maintain compatibility with an older version of CDash which doesn’t support compressed test output.
CTest defines an ordered list of testing steps of which some or all may be run as a dashboard client:
CTest defines three modes of operation as a dashboard client:
CTest can perform testing on an already-generated build tree. Run the ctest command with the current working directory set to the build tree and use one of these signatures:
ctest -D <mode>[<step>] ctest -M <mode> [ -T <step> ]...
The <mode> must be one of the above Dashboard Client Modes, and each <step> must be one of the above Dashboard Client Steps.
CTest reads the Dashboard Client Configuration settings from a file in the build tree called either CTestConfiguration.ini or DartConfiguration.tcl (the names are historical). The format of the file is:
# Lines starting in '#' are comments. # Other non-blank lines are key-value pairs. <setting>: <value>
where <setting> is the setting name and <value> is the setting value.
In build trees generated by CMake, this configuration file is generated by the CTest module if included by the project. The module uses variables to obtain a value for each setting as documented with the settings below.
CTest can perform testing driven by a cmake-language(7) script that creates and maintains the source and build tree as well as performing the testing steps. Run the ctest command with the current working directory set outside of any build tree and use one of these signatures:
ctest -S <script> ctest -SP <script>
The <script> file must call CTest Commands commands to run testing steps explicitly as documented below. The commands obtain Dashboard Client Configuration settings from their arguments or from variables set in the script.
The Dashboard Client Steps may be configured by named settings as documented in the following sections.
Start a new dashboard submission to be composed of results recorded by the following steps.
In a CTest Script, the ctest_start() command runs this step. Arguments to the command may specify some of the step settings. The command first runs the command-line specified by the CTEST_CHECKOUT_COMMAND variable, if set, to initialize the source directory.
Configuration settings include:
In a CTest Script, the ctest_update() command runs this step. Arguments to the command may specify some of the step settings.
Configuration settings to specify the version control tool include:
The source tree is updated by git fetch followed by git reset --hard to the FETCH_HEAD. The result is the same as git pull except that any local moficiations are overwritten. Use GITUpdateCustom to specify a different approach.
Additional configuration settings include:
In a CTest Script, the ctest_configure() command runs this step. Arguments to the command may specify some of the step settings.
Configuration settings include:
See Label and Subproject Summary.
In a CTest Script, the ctest_build() command runs this step. Arguments to the command may specify some of the step settings.
Configuration settings include:
See Label and Subproject Summary.
In a CTest Script, the ctest_test() command runs this step. Arguments to the command may specify some of the step settings.
Configuration settings include:
See Label and Subproject Summary.
In a CTest Script, the ctest_coverage() command runs this step. Arguments to the command may specify some of the step settings.
Configuration settings include:
These options are the first arguments passed to CoverageCommand.
In a CTest Script, the ctest_memcheck() command runs this step. Arguments to the command may specify some of the step settings.
Configuration settings include:
Additional configuration settings include:
In a CTest Script, the ctest_submit() command runs this step. Arguments to the command may specify some of the step settings.
Configuration settings include:
The following resources are available to get help using CMake:
The primary starting point for learning about CMake.
Links to available documentation and community resources may be found on this web page.
For help and discussion about using cmake, a mailing list is provided at cmake@cmake.org. The list is member-post-only but one may sign up on the CMake web page. Please first read the full documentation at https://cmake.org before posting questions to the list.
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| February 10, 2019 | 3.13.4 |