Unit Test Frameworks - A Language-Independant Overview

Most people who write software have at least some experience with unit testing-even if they don't call it that. If you have ever written a few lines of throwaway code just to try something out, you've built a unit test. On the other end of the software spectrum, many large-scale applications have huge batteries of test cases that are repeatedly run and added to throughout the development process.

What are unit test frameworks and how are they used? Simply stated, they are software tools to support writing and running unit tests, including a foundation on which to build tests and the functionality to execute the tests and report their results. They are not solely tools for testing; they can also be used as development tools on a par with preprocessors and debuggers. Unit test frameworks can contribute to almost every stage of software development and are key tools for doing Agile Development and building bug-free code.

Unit Test Frameworks covers the usage, philosophy, and architecture of unit test frameworks. The tutorials and code examples explain:

• Building a basic unit test framework from scratch
• Working with the xUnit family of test frameworks, including JUnit, CppUnit, NUnit, XMLUnit, and PyUnit
• Constructing both simple and complex unit tests

Tutorials and example code are platform-independent and compatible with Windows, Mac OS X, Unix, and Linux. The companion CD includes complete versions of JUnit, CppUnit, NUnit, and XMLUnit, as well as the complete set of code examples.