I've been trying out using GoogleTest for my C++ hobby project, and I need to test the internals of a component (hence white box testing). At my previous work we just made the test classes friends of the class being tested. But with Google Test that doesn't work as each test is given its own unique class, derived from the fixture class if specified, and friend-ness doesn't transfer to derived classes.

Initially I created a test proxy class that is friends with the tested class. It contains a pointer to an instance of the tested class and provides methods for the required, but hidden, members. This worked for a simple class, but now I'm up to testing a tree class with an internal private node class, of which I need to access and mess with.

I'm just wondering if anyone using the GoogleTest library has done any white box testing and if they have any hints or helpful constructs that would make this easier.

Ok, I've found the FRIEND_TEST macro defined in the documentation, as well as some hints on how to test private code in the advanced guide. But apart from having a huge amount of friend declerations (i.e. one FRIEND_TEST for each test), is there an easier idion to use, or should I abandon using GoogleTest and move to a different test framework?