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Added clarification on theories vs parameterized tests in documentation

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Snaipe 2015-09-21 18:19:55 +02:00
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doc/theories.rst
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@ -239,4 +239,27 @@ crash is the divison of INT_MAX by -1, which is undefined.
Fixing this is as easy as changing the prototypes of ``my_mul`` and ``my_div``
to operate on ``long long`` rather than ``int``.
What's the difference between theories and parameterized tests ?
----------------------------------------------------------------
While it may at first seem that theories and parameterized tests are the same,
just because they happen to take multiple parameters does not mean that they
logically behave in the same manner.
Parameterized tests are useful to test a specific logic against a fixed, *finite*
set of examples that you need to work.
Theories are, well, just that: theories. They represent a test against an
universal truth, regardless of the input data matching its predicates.
Implementation-wise, Criterion also marks the separation by the way that both
are executed:
Each parameterized test iteration is run in its own test; this means that
one parameterized test acts as a collection of many tests, and gets reported
as such.
On the other hand, a theory act as one single test, since the size and contents
of the generated data set is not relevant. It does not make sense to say that
an universal truth is "partially true", so if one of the iteration fails, then
the whole test fails.