Private doc test flag

[WillSquire]

Doc tests seem to work in a similar way to integration tests, in that the tests are performed from the public facing API. This is great for public facing libraries, however for internal development it would be nice to have doc tests that run in a just-as-easy fashion.

Is this something on the cards that's on the cards or has a work around?

[GuillaumeGomez]

iirc, we have --document-private-items or something along the ling. You can just combine it with --test I assume.

[WillSquire]

Thanks @GuillaumeGomez , is there anything that can be added to the doc itself? I'd like to avoid passing a flag if possible.

[robyoder]

There are at least a few threads about this in the forum:

• https://users.rust-lang.org/t/doctesting-private-functions/12976
• https://users.rust-lang.org/t/rustdoc-doctests-and-private-documentation/20955
• https://users.rust-lang.org/t/doctest-of-private-functions/60805

A user in the second thread made a good point, which echoes how I felt when I discovered this limitation:

This is very unfortunate, because it gives off the impression that documenting private items in Rust is discouraged (which I hope is not true, as documentation is very valuable to contributors), and therefore makes new users confused when they try to document private items.

[rosik]

Any updates on this issue? I've just met this problem myself and I'm curious if there's at least a workaround.