Running Unit Tests On The Target

In an ideal world, you'd mock out all of your dependencies so you can run your unit tests on your development machine.

When this isn't feasible, don't let it stand in your way:

Add a USE flag "install-tests" to your ebuild:

IUSE="install_tests"

and conditionalize your unit test libraries on this flag:

RDEPEND="blah
    blah
	install_tests? ( dev-cpp/gtest )"

Then build the use flag into a make flag:

use install_tests && MAKE_FLAGS="INSTALL_TESTS=1"

and pass that to your package:

src_compile() {
	tc-export CXX PKG_CONFIG
	cros-debug-add-NDEBUG
	emake ${MAKE_FLAGS} PLUGINDIR="${PLUGINDIR}" || die "Failed to compile"
}
src_install() {
	emake ${MAKE_FLAGS} DESTDIR=${D} install || die "Install failed"
}

see cromo's ebuild for an example

To develop with gmerge, set this flag on the commandline when you start your devserver:

USE=install_tests ./start_devserver 

Note that you must do this within the chroot. If you run the devserver from outside of the chroot, it will drop its environment in the process of entering the chroot, and your USE flag will get dropped.