How to set up googleTest as a shared library on Linux

Question

Debian does not provide any precompiled packages for gTest anymore  They suggest you integrate the framework into your project s makefile  But I want to keep my makefile clean  How do I set up gTest like the former versions   lt 1 6 0   so that I can link against the library

User · Answer

I was similarly underwhelmed by this situation and ended up making my own Ubuntu source packages for this. These source packages allow you to easily produce a binary package. They are based on the latest gtest & gmock source as of this post.

Google Test DEB Source Package

Google Mock DEB Source Package

To build the binary package do this:

tar -xzvf gtest-1.7.0.tar.gz
cd gtest-1.7.0
dpkg-source -x gtest_1.7.0-1.dsc
cd gtest-1.7.0
dpkg-buildpackage

It may tell you that you need some pre-requisite packages in which case you just need to apt-get install them. Apart from that, the built .deb binary packages should then be sitting in the parent directory.

For GMock, the process is the same.

As a side note, while not specific to my source packages, when linking gtest to your unit test, ensure that gtest is included first (https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=156639) This seems like a common gotcha.

User · Answer

Just in case somebody else gets in the same situation like me yesterday  2016-06-22  and also does not succeed with the already posted approaches - on Lubuntu 14 04 it worked for me using the following chain of commands   git clone https   github com google googletest cd googletest cmake -DBUILD SHARED LIBS ON   make cd googlemock sudo cp   libgmock main so   gtest libgtest so gtest libgtest main so   libgmock so  usr lib  sudo ldconfig

User · Answer

This will build and install both gtest and gmock 1 7 0   mkdir  tmp googleTestMock tar -xvf googletest-release-1 7 0 tar gz -C  tmp googleTestMock tar -xvf googlemock-release-1 7 0 tar gz -C  tmp googleTestMock cd  tmp googleTestMock mv googletest-release-1 7 0 gtest cd googlemock-release-1 7 0 cmake -DBUILD SHARED LIBS ON   make -j  nproc  sudo cp -a include gmock  usr include sudo cp -a libgmock so libgmock main so  usr lib  sudo cp -a    gtest include gtest  usr include sudo cp -a gtest libgtest so gtest libgtest main so  usr lib  sudo ldconfig

User · Answer

Update for Debian Ubuntu  Google Mock  package  google-mock  and Google Test  package  libgtest-dev  have been merged  The new package is called googletest  Both old names are still available for backwards compatibility and now depend on the new package googletest   So  to get your libraries from the package repository  you can do the following   sudo apt-get install googletest -y cd  usr src googletest sudo mkdir build cd build sudo cmake    sudo make sudo cp googlemock   a googlemock gtest   a  usr lib   After that  you can link against -lgmock  or against -lgmock main if you do not use a custom main method  and -lpthread  This was sufficient for using Google Test in my cases at least   If you want the most current version of Google Test  download it from github  After that  the steps are similar   git clone https   github com google googletest cd googletest sudo mkdir build cd build sudo cmake    sudo make sudo cp lib   a  usr lib   As you can see  the path where the libraries are created has changed  Keep in mind that the new path might be valid for the package repositories soon  too   Instead of copying the libraries manually  you could use sudo make install  It  currently  works  but be aware that it did not always work in the past  Also  you don t have control over the target location when using this command and you might not want to pollute  usr lib

User · Answer

Let me answer this specifically for ubuntu users  First start by installing the gtest development package   sudo apt-get install libgtest-dev   Note that this package only install source files  You have to compile the code yourself to create the necessary library files  These source files should be located at  usr src gtest  Browse to this folder and use cmake to compile the library   sudo apt-get install cmake   install cmake cd  usr src gtest sudo mkdir build cd build sudo cmake    sudo make sudo make install   Now to compile your programs that uses gtest  you have to link it with   -lgtest -lgtest main -lpthread   This worked perfectly for me on Ubuntu 14 04LTS

User · Answer

This answer from askubuntu is what worked for me  Seems simpler than other options an less error-prone  since it uses package libgtest-dev to get the sources and builds from there  https   askubuntu com questions 145887 why-no-library-files-installed-for-google-test answertab votes tab-top  Please refer to that answer  but just as a shortcut I provide the steps here as well   sudo apt-get install -y libgtest-dev sudo apt-get install -y cmake cd  usr src gtest sudo cmake   sudo make sudo mv libg   usr lib    After that  I could build my project which depends on gtest with no issues

User · Answer

It took me a while to figure out this because the normal  make install  has been removed and I don t use cmake  Here is my experience to share  At work  I don t have root access on Linux  so I installed the Google test framework under my home directory    usr gtest    To install the package in   usr gtest  as shared libraries  together with sample build as well     mkdir   temp   cd   temp   unzip gtest-1 7 0 zip    cd gtest-1 7 0   mkdir mybuild   cd mybuild   cmake -DBUILD SHARED LIBS ON -Dgtest build samples ON -G Unix Makefiles       make   cp -r    include gtest   usr gtest include    cp lib  so   usr gtest lib   To validate the installation  use the following test c as a simple test example        include  lt gtest gtest h gt      TEST MathTest  TwoPlusTwoEqualsFour            EXPECT EQ 2   2  4              int main int argc  char   argv              testing  InitGoogleTest   amp argc  argv            return RUN ALL TESTS            To compile         export GTEST HOME   usr gtest       export LD LIBRARY PATH  GTEST HOME lib  LD LIBRARY PATH       g   -I  GTEST HOME include -L  GTEST HOME lib -lgtest -lgtest main -lpthread test cpp

User · Answer

If you happen to be using CMake  you can use ExternalProject Add as described here   This avoids you having to keep gtest source code in your repository  or installing it anywhere   It is downloaded and built in your build tree automatically

User · Answer

This will install google test and mock library in Ubuntu Debian based system   sudo apt-get install google-mock   Tested in google cloud in debian based image

User · Answer

For 1 8 1 based on  ManuelSchneid3r  s answer  I had to do   wget github com google googletar xf release-1 8 1 tar gz  tar xf release-1 8 1 tar gz cd googletest-release-1 8 1  cmake -DBUILD SHARED LIBS ON   make   I then did make install which seemed to work for 1 8 1  but  following  ManuelSchneid3r it would mean   sudo cp -a googletest include gtest  usr include sudo cp -a googlemock include gmock  usr include sudo cp  find   grep  so    usr lib

User · Answer

The following method avoids manually messing with the  usr lib directory while also requiring minimal change in your CMakeLists txt file   It also lets your package manager cleanly uninstall libgtest-dev   The idea is that when you get the libgtest-dev package via  sudo apt install libgtest-dev   The source is stored in location  usr src googletest  You can simply point your CMakeLists txt to that directory so that it can find the necessary dependencies  Simply replace FindGTest with add subdirectory  usr src googletest gtest   At the end  it should look like this  add subdirectory  usr src googletest gtest  target link libraries your executable gtest

User · Answer

Before you start make sure your have read and understood this note from Google  This tutorial makes using gtest easy  but may introduce nasty bugs  1  Get the googletest framework wget https   github com google googletest archive release-1 8 0 tar gz  Or get it by hand  I won t maintain this little How-to  so if you stumbled upon it and the links are outdated  feel free to edit it  2  Unpack and build google test tar xf release-1 8 0 tar gz cd googletest-release-1 8 0 cmake -DBUILD SHARED LIBS ON   make  3   quot Install quot  the headers and libs on your system  This step might differ from distro to distro  so make sure you copy the headers and libs in the correct directory  I accomplished this by checking where Debians former gtest libs were located  But I m sure there are better ways to do this  Note  make install is dangerous and not supported sudo cp -a googletest include gtest  usr include sudo cp -a googlemock gtest libgtest main so googlemock gtest libgtest so  usr lib   4  Update the cache of the linker     and check if the GNU Linker knows the libs sudo ldconfig -v   grep gtest  If the output looks like this  libgtest so 0 - gt  libgtest so 0 0 0 libgtest main so 0 - gt  libgtest main so 0 0 0  then everything is fine  gTestframework is now ready to use  Just don t forget to link your project against the library by setting -lgtest as linker flag and optionally  if you did not write your own test mainroutine  the explicit -lgtest main flag  From here on you might want to go to Googles documentation  and the old docs about the framework to learn how it works  Happy coding  Edit  This works for OS X too  See  quot How to properly setup googleTest on OS X quot

[c++] How to set up googleTest as a shared library on Linux

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