Catch is designed to "just work" as much as possible. For most people the only configuration needed is telling Catch which source file should host all the implementation code (```CATCH_CONFIG_MAIN```).
Nonetheless there are still some occasions where finer control is needed. For these occasions Catch exposes a set of macros for configuring how it is built.
Although Catch is header only it still, internally, maintains a distinction between interface headers and headers that contain implementation. Only one source file in your test project should compile the implementation headers and this is controlled through the use of one of these macros - one of these identifiers should be defined before including Catch in *exactly one implementation file in your project*.
# Prefixing Catch macros
CATCH_CONFIG_PREFIX_ALL
To keep test code clean and uncluttered Catch uses short macro names (e.g. ```TEST_CASE``` and ```REQUIRE```). Occasionally these may conflict with identifiers from platform headers or the system under test. In this case the above identifier can be defined. This will cause all the Catch user macros to be prefixed with ```CATCH_``` (e.g. ```CATCH_TEST_CASE``` and ```CATCH_REQUIRE```).
Yes, I am English, so I will continue to spell "colour" with a 'u'.
When sending output to the terminal, if it detects that it can, Catch will use colourised text. On Windows the Win32 API, ```SetConsoleTextAttribute```, is used. On POSIX systems ANSI colour escape codes are inserted into the stream.
For finer control you can define one of the above identifiers (these are mutually exclusive - but that is not checked so may behave unexpectedly if you mix them):
Note that when ANSI colour codes are used "unistd.h" must be includable - along with a definition of ```isatty()```
Typically you should place the ```#define``` before #including "catch.hpp" in your main source file - but if you prefer you can define it for your whole project by whatever your IDE or build system provides for you to do so.
CATCH_CONFIG_CONSOLE_WIDTH = x // where x is a number
Catch formats output intended for the console to fit within a fixed number of characters. This is especially important as indentation is used extensively and uncontrolled line wraps break this.
By default a console width of 80 is assumed but this can be controlled by defining the above identifier to be a different value.
# stdout
CATCH_CONFIG_NOSTDOUT
Catch does not use ```std::cout``` and ```std::cerr``` directly but gets them from ```Catch::cout()``` and ```Catch::cerr()``` respectively. If the above identifier is defined these functions are left unimplemented and you must implement them yourself. Their signatures are:
std::ostream& cout();
std::ostream& cerr();
This can be useful on certain platforms that do not provide ```std::cout``` and ```std::cerr```, such as certain embedded systems.
Catch has some basic compiler detection that will attempt to select the appropriate mix of these macros. However being incomplete - and often without access to the respective compilers - this detection tends to be conservative.
So overriding control is given to the user. If a compiler supports a feature (and Catch does not already detect it) then one or more of these may be defined to enable it (or suppress it, in some cases). If you do do this please raise an issue, specifying your compiler version (ideally with an idea of how to detect it) and stating that it has such support.
Currently Catch enables `CATCH_CONFIG_WINDOWS_SEH` only when compiled with MSVC, because some versions of MinGW do not have the necessary Win32 API support.
`CATCH_CONFIG_POSIX_SIGNALS` is on by default, except when Catch is compiled under `Cygwin`, where it is disabled by default (but can be force-enabled by defining `CATCH_CONFIG_POSIX_SIGNALS`).
`CATCH_CONFIG_WINDOWS_CRTDBG` is off by default. If enabled, Windows's CRT is used to check for memory leaks, and displays them after the tests finish running.
Defining this flag speeds up compilation of test files by ~20%, by making 2 changes:
* The `-b` (`--break`) flag no longer makes Catch break into debugger in the same stack frame as the failed test, but rather in a stack frame *below*.
* The `REQUIRE` family of macros (`REQUIRE`, `REQUIRE_FALSE` and `REQUIRE_THAT`) no longer uses local try-catch block. This creates minor chance for false negative under certain conditions, when expression tested inside `REQUIRE` throws exception, that is then caught by user's code before it gets to the test runner. Example:
```cpp
TEST_CASE("False negative") {
try {
REQUIRE(throws() == "");
} catch (...) {}
}
```
This test case will succeed, reporting no assertions checked, instead of failing as it would without `CATCH_CONFIG_FAST_COMPILE`.
`CATCH_CONFIG_FAST_COMPILE` has to be either defined, or not defined, in all translation units that are linked into single test binary, or the behaviour of setting `-b` flag will be unpredictable.
On Windows Catch includes `windows.h`. To minimize global namespace clutter in the implementation file, it defines `NOMINMAX` and `WIN32_LEAN_AND_MEAN` before including it. You can control this behaviour via two macros:
CATCH_CONFIG_NO_NOMINMAX // Stops Catch from using NOMINMAX macro
CATCH_CONFIG_NO_WIN32_LEAN_AND_MEAN // Stops Catch from using WIN32_LEAN_AND_MEAN macro
