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So Many Tools and Acronyms

Hold on. Back up. Unity? CMock? CException? Ruby? Rake? YAML?

Ceedling suite frameworks

Unity

Unity is a unit test framework for C. It provides facilities for test assertions, executing tests, and collecting / reporting test results. Unity derives its name from its implementation in a single C source file (plus two C header files) and from the nature of its implementation - Unity will build in any C toolchain and is configurable for even the very minimalist of processors.

CMock

CMock† is a tool written in Ruby able to generate function mocks & stubs in C code from a given C header file. Mock functions are invaluable in interaction-based unit testing. CMock's generated C code uses Unity.

† Through a plugin, Ceedling also supports FFF, Fake Function Framework, for fake functions as an alternative to CMock's mocks and stubs.

CException

CException is a C source and header file that provide a simple exception mechanism for C by way of wrapping up the setjmp / longjmp standard library calls. Exceptions are a much cleaner and preferable alternative to managing and passing error codes up your return call trace.

Core tools

Ruby

Ruby is a handy scripting language like Perl or Python. It's a modern, full featured language that happens to be quite handy for accomplishing tasks like code generation or automating one's workflow while developing in a compiled language such as C.

Rake

Migrating away from Rake

Ceedling would not exist today if not for the help Rake provided to get off the ground. As Ceedling matured it became apparent that Rake had become a limitation. The project is slowly removing its dependency on Rake.

Rake is a utility written in Ruby for accomplishing dependency tracking and task automation common to building software. It's a modern, more flexible replacement for Make.

Rakefiles are Ruby files, but they contain build targets similar in nature to that of Makefiles (but you can also run Ruby code in your Rakefile).

YAML

YAML is a "human friendly data serialization standard for all programming languages." It's kinda like a markup language but don't call it that. With a YAML library, you can serialize data structures to and from the file system in a textual, human readable form. Ceedling uses a serialized data structure as its configuration input.

YAML has some advanced features that can greatly reduce duplication in a configuration file needed in complex projects. YAML anchors and aliases are beyond the scope of this document but may be of use to advanced Ceedling users. Note that Ceedling does anticipate the use of YAML aliases. It proactively flattens YAML lists to remove any list nesting that results from the convenience of aliasing one list inside another.

Dependencies and Bundled Tools

  • By using the preferred installation options of the Ruby Ceedling gem or the prepackaged Docker images, all Ceedling dependencies will be installed for you. (See installation section.)

  • Regardless of installation method, Unity, CMock, and CException are bundled with Ceedling. Ceedling is designed to glue them all together for your project as seamlessly as possible.

  • YAML support is included with Ruby. It requires no special installation or configuration. If your project file contains properly formatted YAML with the recognized names and options (see later sections), you are good to go.