# Testing abnormal exit of programs
**URL:** https://discourse.cmake.org/t/testing-abnormal-exit-of-programs/5903
**Category:** Usage
**Created:** [June 20, 2022, 1:04pm UTC](https://discourse.cmake.org/t/testing-abnormal-exit-of-programs/5903 "2022-06-20T13:04:49Z")
**Posts on this page:** 2
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@KUGA2](https://discourse.cmake.org/u/KUGA2)
#### Post date: [June 20, 2022, 1:04pm UTC](https://discourse.cmake.org/t/testing-abnormal-exit-of-programs/5903/1 "2022-06-20T13:04:50Z")
I want to test with ctest, that an executable fails (e.g. with abort()).
How can i specify this in ctest?
How can I set ctestto exlicitly exprect an abort (or SEGV or …)?
```auto
:~/cmake_test/Build$ ninja && ctest
[4/4] Linking CXX executable normal
Test project /home/xxx/cmake_test/Build
Start 1: normal
1/2 Test #1: normal ........................... Passed 0.00 sec
Start 2: abort
2/2 Test #2: abort ............................Child aborted***Exception: 0.00 sec
50% tests passed, 1 tests failed out of 2
Total Test time (real) = 0.00 sec
The following tests FAILED:
2 - abort (Child aborted)
Errors while running CTest
```
**Example:**
CMakeLists.txt
```auto
cmake_minimum_required(VERSION 3.10)
project(cmake_test)
enable_testing()
add_executable(normal normal.cpp)
add_executable(abort abort.cpp)
add_test(NAME normal COMMAND normal)
add_test(NAME abort COMMAND abort)
set_tests_properties(abort PROPERTIES WILL_FAIL True) # does not work on abort()
```
normal.cpp
```auto
int main()
{
return 0;
}
```
abort.cpp
```auto
#include
int main()
{
abort();
return 0;
}
```
---
### Author:  [@ben.boeckel](https://discourse.cmake.org/u/ben.boeckel)
#### Post date: [June 20, 2022, 6:08pm UTC](https://discourse.cmake.org/t/testing-abnormal-exit-of-programs/5903/2 "2022-06-20T18:08:37Z")
You can expect failure, but that’s really about it; not really any specific kind of failure. For things like this, a wrapper script that does the detection and translation into a normal exit (say, `bash` or PowerShell) would be best I think.