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An Informal Formal Method for Systematic JUnit Test Case Generation

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Extreme Programming and Agile Methods — XP/Agile Universe 2002 (XP/Agile Universe 2002)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNCS,volume 2418))

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Abstract

The JUnit testing tool is widely used to support the central XP concept of “test first” software development. While JUnit provides Java classes for expressing test cases and test suites, it does not provide or proscribe per se any guidelines for deciding what test cases are good ones for any particular class. We have developed a method for systematically creating complete and consistent test classes for JUnit. Called JAX (for Junit Axioms), the method is based on Guttag’s algebraic specification of abstract data types. We demonstrate an informal use of ADT semantics for guiding JUnit test method generation; the programmer uses no formal notation other than Java, and the procedure meshes with XP test-as-design principles. Preliminary experiments show that informal JAX-based testing finds more errors than an ad hoc form of JUnit testing.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Dept. of Computer Science, Univ. of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, USA

    David Stotts, Mark Lindsey & Angus Antley

Authors
  1. David Stotts
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  2. Mark Lindsey
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  3. Angus Antley
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. 4681 Brockham Way, Sterling Heights, MI, 48310, USA

    Don Wells

  2. Department of Computer Science, North Carolina State University, 1010 Main Campus Road, 407 EGRC, Raleigh, NC, 27695, USA

    Laurie Williams

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© 2002 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg

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Stotts, D., Lindsey, M., Antley, A. (2002). An Informal Formal Method for Systematic JUnit Test Case Generation. In: Wells, D., Williams, L. (eds) Extreme Programming and Agile Methods — XP/Agile Universe 2002. XP/Agile Universe 2002. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 2418. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/3-540-45672-4_13

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/3-540-45672-4_13

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-540-44024-6

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-540-45672-8

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