Composing tests from examples

Abstract

Understanding and maintaining complex software systems is a difficult task. In principle, tests can be a good source of information about how the system works. Unfortunately, tests are frequently unstructured and disconnected from each other and from their units under test. We propose a new approach to organizing unit tests in which tests produce examples of their units under tests which also can be reused for composing higher-level tests. The approach is based on the EG meta-model, which classifies tests according to their granularity and their goals. We have developed the EGBROWSER, an experimental tool for specifying tests that conform to the EG meta-model while keeping track of the connection between tests themselves and their units under test. Initial usability studies suggest that the approach is both easy to learn and more efficient than the programmatic approach to developing tests.