Press Release
November 30, 2004
"Unit Test Frameworks": A Language-Independent Overview
Sebastopol, CA--According to author Paul Hamill, most people who write
software have at least some experience with unit testing, even if they
don't think of it that way. "If you have ever written a few lines of
throwaway code just to try something out, you've built a unit test," says
Hamill. "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. Unit tests are useful at all
levels of programming."
But what are unit tests and how are they run? In his new book Unit Test
Frameworks (O'Reilly, US $29.95), Hamill covers the usage, philosophy,
and architecture of unit test frameworks as he answers this question. He
explains that unit test frameworks are software tools to support writing
and running 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," says Hamill. "They can also be used as
development tools on a par with preprocessors and debuggers. Unit tests
frameworks can contribute to almost every stage of software development,
including software architecture and design, code implementation and
debugging, performance optimization, and quality assurance."
Until now, there has been little documentation available on unit testing,
and most sources addressed specific frameworks and specific languages,
rather than explaining the use of unit testing as a language-independent,
standalone development methodology. Hamill begins by having the reader
build a simple unit test framework from the ground up. The xUnit
architecture is presented, using the JUnit framework as the reference
implementation of xUnit. Readers will progressively build an example
application to demonstrate common practices and patterns of unit test
development.
With step-by-step instruction in basic unit test development, Unit Test
Frameworks provides useful code examples in both Java and C++, and
includes details on some of the most commonly used frameworks today from
the xUnit family, including JUnit for Java, CppUnit for C++, and NUnit for
.NET. The book includes clear, concise, and detailed descriptions of:
The theory and design of unit test frameworks
Examples of unit tests and frameworks
Different types of unit tests
Popular unit test frameworks
The tutorials and example code included in Unit Test Frameworks are
platform-independent and compatible with Windows, Mac OS X, Unix, and
Linux. The book's companion CD includes complete versions of JUnit,
CppUnit, NUnit, and XMLUnit, as well as the complete set of code examples.
Additional Resources:
Unit Test Frameworks
Paul Hamill
ISBN: 0-596-00689-6, 198 pages, $29.95 US, $43.95 CA
order@oreilly.com
1-800-998-9938; 1-707-827-7000
About O'Reilly
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