Indirect Testing

Definition:

• The Test Method is interacting with the SUT indirectly via another object thereby making the interactions more complex.

Code Example:

private final int LEGAL_CONN_MINS_SAME = 30;
public void testAnalyze_sameAirline_LessThanConnectionLimit()
throws Exception {
   // setup
   FlightConnection illegalConn = createSameAirlineConn( LEGAL_CONN_MINS_SAME - 1);
   // exercise
   FlightConnectionAnalyzerImpl sut = new FlightConnectionAnalyzerImpl();
   String actualHtml = sut.getFlightConnectionAsHtmlFragment( illegalConn.getInboundFlightNumber(),
                    illegalConn.getOutboundFlightNumber());
   // verification
   StringBuffer expected = new StringBuffer();
   expected.append("<span class=”boldRedText”>");
   expected.append("Connection time between flight ");
   expected.append(illegalConn.getInboundFlightNumber());
   expected.append(" and flight ");
   expected.append(illegalConn.getOutboundFlightNumber());
   expected.append(" is ");
   expected.append(illegalConn.getActualConnectionTime());
   expected.append(" minutes.</span>");
   assertEquals("html", expected.toString(), actualHtml);
}

References:

Quality attributes

• - Code Example

• - Cause and Effect

• - Frequency

• - Refactoring

• A survey on test practitioners’ awareness of test smells

• An Empirical Study into the Relationship Between Class Features and Test Smells

• An empirical analysis of the distribution of unit test smells and their impact on software maintenance

• An exploratory study of the relationship between software test smells and fault-proneness

• Are test smells really harmful? An empirical study

• Automatic generation of smell-free unit tests

• Categorising Test Smells

• Detecting redundant unit tests for AspectJ programs

• Enhancing developers’ awareness on test suites’ quality with test smell summaries

• How are test smells treated in the wild? A tale of two empirical studies

• Obscure Test

• On the Relation of Test Smells to Software Code Quality

• On the diffusion of test smells in automatically generated test code: an empirical study

• On the interplay between software testing and evolution and its effect on program comprehension

• Refactoring Test Code

• Revisiting Test Smells in Automatically Generated Tests: Limitations, Pitfalls, and Opportunities

• Scented since the beginning: On the diffuseness of test smells in automatically generated test code

• Test Smell Detection Tools: A Systematic Mapping Study

• TestQ: Exploring Structural and Maintenance Characteristics of Unit Test Suites

• The Relation of Test-Related Factors to Software Quality: A Case Study on Apache Systems

• Why do builds fail?—A conceptual replication study