The Maly Libft Tester

The Maly Libft Tester Showcase Video on Youtube (1.1.0)

Currently up-to-date with Libft subject version 19.2.

A fast, cross-platform (Linux/macOS) Libft tester for 42 students. This tester executes over 500 tests in under 0.02 seconds.

Table of Contents

1. Prerequisites
2. Building and Running the Tester
3. What this tester DOES check
4. What this tester does NOT check
5. Setting up automated tests in your Libft Makefile
6. Libft Subject Version Compatibility
7. Acknowledgments

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Prerequisites

• Linux or MacOS
• GCC or Clang compiler
• Your compiled libft.a library

Building and Running the Tester

Use the provided build.sh script.
Pass the path to your compiled libft.a archive as the only argument.

./build.sh <path/to/libft.a>

Run the tester:

./tester

For more information about command-line arguments that can be parsed, run:

./tester help

What this tester DOES check

• Checks correct outputs for all Libft functions.
  
• Checks memory leaks (using linker-level wrapping on Linux and flat namespace overrides on macOS).
  
• Checks segmentation faults, timeouts, bus errors, double frees using process isolation.
  
• Provides detailed hex and string memory dumps in failed_reports.txt for any failed tests.
  

What this tester does NOT check

• Does NOT check if your libft project was written in accordance with the 42 Norm.
  
• Does NOT check your libft project's Makefile and its rules, flags, relinking, etc.
  
• Does NOT check if you declared any global variables in your project.
  
• Does NOT check if you used any unallowed functions in your project.
  
• Does NOT check for any README requirements.
  

Setting up automated tests in your Libft Makefile

Create one variable for the Tester's directory path and one for optional Tester's arguments.

#  Example setup
TESTER_DIRECTORY_PATH := ../maly_libft_tester
TESTER_ARGUMENTS := --set-timeout-ms 50

Create a new rule named test:

test: $(NAME)
	$(TESTER_DIRECTORY_PATH)/build.sh ./$(NAME)
	./tester $(TESTER_ARGUMENTS)

And declare it as .PHONY so it always runs:

.PHONY: all clean fclean re test

Add the compiled tester executable to your existing fclean rule so it gets properly removed alongside your library:

fclean: clean
	$(RM) $(NAME)
	$(RM) tester

That is it! Now, run make test to build and run the tester.

Libft Subject Version Compatibility

This tester currently tracks Libft subject version 19.2. If a newer subject version is released and the tester falls behind, please create an issue so it can be updated. Thank you.

Acknowledgments

The base and OS layers of this project are derived from RADDebugger by Epic Games. I would like to thank the RAD team for sharing their high-quality code, which significantly improved the robustness and portability of this tester.