Unit testing is perfect approach to identify bugs and possible regressions before they impact the development work. However, there are multiple best practices that requires attention to make sure that you get the desired benefits from unit testing. This blog post talks about unit testing, why it is important, and the best practices Java development services follows for desired business outcome.
Introduction to Unit Testing in Java
Unit Testing is a methodology for testing different units of source code to make sure that they operate as needed. In other words, unit testing ensure the smallest parts of an application are tested to ensure that they work properly.
Unit tests are basically written by developers, who employ unit tests to make sure their code works as desired and does not break other code parts. Unit testing is a systematic process to ensure that each unit runs as desired and that it meets the specific requirements.
Important Best Practices for Java Code Unit Testing
- Write Tests Before Code
It may appear an odd process, but developer can do one thing is to write unit tests before building any code. This way, it becomes easy to perform testing before you start coding. This can also guide you from not having to write unnecessary code.
- Analyze Test Code Coverage
Java unit tests are managed depending on their code coverage, which identifies the amount of code they cover. It is a great tool to learn how impacting your unit tests are, and can guide developers improve them.
To know what percentage of the code in your whole application is covered by unit tests, just analyze different things: all the classes in your code and all tests for all those classes.
- Proceed with Small and Focused Unit Tests
When writing a unit test, an important thing to understand is to keep the unit tests both small and focused. A Java Application Testing Services should focus on testing one particular thing at a time. This makes them easier to write and maintain, and also makes it easier to pinpoint which test is failing if a bug is found.
- Isolate Unit Tests from External Dependencies
During the writing of unit test, it is useful for a programmer to isolate their tests from external dependencies. Major examples of external dependencies comprise of databases, web services, and other software elements that your code relies on.
Managing all of these things running while trying to test the code is a challenging concern. By isolating unit tests, programmers can write them quickly and easily without having to concern about external resources. One way to isolate these external dependencies is with the use of mocks and stubs.
- Create Independent Code Tests
The first step to create Java technology unit tests is to make sure they are independent of each other. Programmers should be able to run any test and have it cleared in a reasonable time period. This supports developers to create some tests that can be run at any time and does not need additional unit tests.
The key objective here is to test suite to operate like an automated acceptance test for your code base. If one unit test is passed, then everything is passed. Place unit tests in their packages and away from the production code. It is a great practice to keep them away from the production source code.
Wrapping Up
Implementing good coding practices, including meaningful variable names and comments, will help to simplify Java code development. This will make writing of unit test easy for your code.
Unit testing, if done in the right manner by following the recommended techniques, can yield desired results. You can hire Java developer to make sure tests stay up-to-date and offer useful results. When they run they add value to the development life cycle and do not become an overhead.
