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copied!<p><strong>Pros</strong></p> <ul> <li>You can access the private members to test them</li> <li>Its a fairly minimal amount of <code>hack</code></li> </ul> <p><strong>Cons</strong></p> <ul> <li>Broken encapsulation</li> <li>Broken encapsulation that is more complicated and just as brittle as <code>friend</code></li> <li>Mixing test with production code by putting <code>test_backdoor</code> on the production side</li> <li>Maintance problem ( just like friending the the test code, you've created an <em>extremely</em> tight coupling with your test code ) </li> </ul> <hr> <p>All of the Pros/Cons aside, I think you are best off making some architectural changes that allow better testing of whatever complex stuff is happening.</p> <p><strong>Possible Solutions</strong></p> <ul> <li>Use the Pimpl idiom, put the <code>complex</code> code in the pimpl along with the private member, and write a test for the Pimpl. The Pimpl can be forward declared as a public member, allowing external instantiation in the unit test. The Pimpl can consist of only public members, making it easier to test <ul> <li>Disadvantage: Lots of code</li> <li>Disadvantage: opaque type that can be more difficult to see inside of when debugging</li> </ul></li> <li>Just test the public/protected interface of the class. Test the contract that your interface lays out. <ul> <li>Disadvantage: unit tests are difficult/impossible to write in an isolated manner.</li> </ul></li> <li>Similar to the Pimpl solutions, but create a free function with the <code>complex</code> code in it. Put the declaration in a private header ( not part of the libraries public interface ), and test it.</li> <li>Break encapsulation via friend a test method/fixture <ul> <li>Possible variation on this: declare <code>friend struct test_context;</code>, put your test code inside of methods in the implementation of <code>struct test_context</code>. This way you don't have to friend each test case, method, or fixture. This should reduce the likelyhood of someone breaking the friending.</li> </ul></li> <li>Break encapsulation via template specialization </li> </ul>

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