A Pattern Language for Automated Testing of Indirect Inputs and Outputs using XUnit
Gerard Meszaros · 2004
Automated unit tests (A.K.A. "developer tests") and functional test (A.K.A. "customer tests") are a cornerstone of many agile development methods (such as eXtreme Programming). The availability of automated, self-checking tests allows developers to be much bolder in how they modify existing software. It is usually fairly straightforward to test the direct inputs and outputs of a class or component via it’s API. But many classes and components depend on some other component that provides “indirect inputs ” to the software under test. This pattern language describes key techniques used to verify that the software is interacting correctly with these “behind the scenes ” components. Pattern Template Because these patterns are destined for publishing in a book, I have chosen to use a more “reader friendly ” patterns template inspired by the one used by Martin Fowler in his more recent book: “Patterns of Enterprise Application Architecture”. It is less structured than more classic pattern forms but still contains all the basic sections of a pattern. The template starts off with the summary statement and a sketch. The summary statement captures the essence of the pattern in one or two sentences and the sketch provides a visual representation of the pattern. The next (untitled)