E-Tester: A contract-aware and agent-based unit testing framework for Eiffel

Abstract

We describe a contract-aware unit testing framework, E-Tester, for the Eiffel programming language. The framework differs from JUnit in its first-class support for lightweight formal methods, through test support for contracts and assertions. As well, it supports a form of negative test, called violation cases, which aim at validating contracts. It also differs based on its use of agents for expressing tests and test cases. We compare E-Tester with JUnit and suggest several advantages it offers, with the additional aim of making recommendations for improving JUnit's support for testing software with contracts. We also explain how it can be applied within a test-driven process for building reliable systems. © JOT, 2005.