Closing the Gap between Unit Test Code and Documentation

Abstract

Test Driven Development as well as the documentation of tests and their architecture are today an important pillar of software quality assurance. The change of requirements during the implementation phase entails a need to change tests as well as the test documentation of the software. Since unit tests are specified in the implementation language, an interdisciplinary readable documentation must be maintained, which is structurally easier to comprehend and also make the test transparent for persons who are not involved into code writing. This leads to additional effort, costs and possibly inconsistencies between the test and its documentation. This gap in the workflow could be closed by Tanni – a domain specific language, which allows the specification of test cases in the form of interdisciplinary readable tables without requiring programming skills. Based on them executable test code for the respective unit test framework is generated. This merges specification and documentation of unit test cases to one step of work. By this the mentioned additional effort, costs and imminent inconsistencies can be reduced. The Language Workbench Meta Programming System from JetBrains serves as a technological base and is enabler for further positive effects which possibly could be gained by using the described language.