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Unit testing

In computer programming, unit testing is a software testing method by which individual units of source code, sets of one or more computer program modules together with associated control data, usage procedures, and operating procedures, are tested to determine whether they are fit for use. Unit tests are typically automated tests written and run by software developers to ensure that a section of an application (known as the 'unit') meets its design and behaves as intended. In procedural programming, a unit could be an entire module, but it is more commonly an individual function or procedure. In object-oriented programming, a unit is often an entire interface, such as a class, but could be an individual method. By writing tests first for the smallest testable units, then the compound behaviors between those, one can build up comprehensive tests for complex applications. To isolate issues that may arise, each test case should be tested independently. Substitutes such as method stubs, mock objects, fakes, and test harnesses can be used to assist testing a module in isolation. During development, a software developer may code criteria, or result that is known to be good, into the test to verify the unit's correctness. During test case execution, frameworks log tests that fail any criterion and report them in a summary. Writing and maintaining unit tests can be made faster by using Parameterized Tests (PUTs). These allow the execution of one test multiple times with different input sets, thus reducing test code duplication. Unlike traditional unit tests, which are usually closed methods and test invariant conditions, PUTs take any set of parameters. PUTs have been supported by TestNG, JUnit and its .Net counterpart, XUnit. Suitable parameters for the unit tests may be supplied manually or in some cases are automatically generated by the test framework. In recent years support was added for writing more powerful (unit) tests, leveraging the concept of Theory. A parameterized test uses same execution steps with multiple input sets that are pre-defined. A theory is a test case that executes the same steps still, but inputs can be provided by a data generating method at run time. The goal of unit testing is to isolate each part of the program and show that the individual parts are correct. A unit test provides a strict, written contract that the piece of code must satisfy. As a result, it affords several benefits. Unit testing finds problems early in the development cycle. This includes both bugs in the programmer's implementation and flaws or missing parts of the specification for the unit. The process of writing a thorough set of tests forces the author to think through inputs, outputs, and error conditions, and thus more crisply define the unit's desired behavior. The cost of finding a bug before coding begins or when the code is first written is considerably lower than the cost of detecting, identifying, and correcting the bug later. Bugs in released code may also cause costly problems for the end-users of the software. Code can be impossible or difficult to unit test if poorly written, thus unit testing can force developers to structure functions and objects in better ways. In test-driven development (TDD), which is frequently used in both extreme programming and scrum, unit tests are created before the code itself is written. When the tests pass, that code is considered complete. The same unit tests are run against that function frequently as the larger code base is developed either as the code is changed or via an automated process with the build. If the unit tests fail, it is considered to be a bug either in the changed code or the tests themselves. The unit tests then allow the location of the fault or failure to be easily traced. Since the unit tests alert the development team of the problem before handing the code off to testers or clients, potential problems are caught early in the development process.

[ "Software", "Software engineering", "Programming language", "test", "xUnit", "Mock object" ]
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