Paper Info
Title
Test Blueprints - Exposing Side Effects in Execution Traces to Support Writing Unit Tests
Abstract
Writing unit tests for legacy systems is a key maintenance task. When writing tests for object-oriented programs, objects need to be set up and the expected effects of executing the unit under test need to be verified. If developers lack internal knowledge of a system, the task of writing tests is non-trivial. To address this problem, we propose an approach that exposes side effects detected in example runs of the system and uses these side effects to guide the developer when writing tests. We introduce a visualization called Test Blueprint, through which we identify what the required fixture is and what assertions are needed to verify the correct behavior of a unit under test. The dynamic analysis technique that underlies our approach is based on both tracing method executions and on tracking the flow of objects at runtime. To demonstrate the usefulness of our approach we present results from two case studies.
Year
DOI
Venue
2008
10.1109/CSMR.2008.4493303
CSMR
Keywords
Field
DocType
unit test,exposes side effect,execution traces,expected effect,exposing side effects,legacy system,object flow analysis,case study,test blueprint,unit testing,unit tests,dynamic analysis technique,software maintenance,key maintenance task,dynamic analysis,test blueprints,correct behavior,side effect,object oriented programming,software visualization,writing,information analysis,unit under test,software testing,system monitoring,object oriented program,system testing,data flow analysis,flow analysis
Programming language,Software engineering,Object-oriented programming,Computer science,Visualization,Unit testing,Data-flow analysis,Knowledge-based systems,Software maintenance,Software visualization,Legacy system
Conference
Citations 
PageRank 
References 
5
0.54
14
Authors
4
Name
Order
Citations
PageRank
Adrian Lienhard117311.01
Tudor Girba272940.01
Orla Greevy321514.22
Oscar Nierstrasz42404346.86