Test Drivers for the Code Interface

Created and summarized by Brian Marick.

Test drivers feed input to the code under test, then observe the results. This page is for those whose code under test is a subroutine library, class library, or system call interface to an operating system. Such people are much more likely to implement their own test drivers than are, say, those who are testing through graphical user interfaces (GUIs).

If you are implementing your own code-level test driver, it's a good idea to see how other people have done it. You can get ideas from them. Here is some documentation to look at.

• Mark Wiley describes Komet, a test driver used for system calls and library routines on the Plan 9 operating system. Reprinted by permission of nCube.
• The Test Environment Toolkit is a mixed commercial and open source product from The Open Group. The documentation page contains user documentation (for those who will run tests) and programmer's documentation (for those who will write them).
• Kent Beck and Erich Gamma wrote JUnit for Java programs. It is described in Test Infected: Programmers Love Writing Tests. To see more documentation, download the code and documentation package from here and unzip it. The same location has variants for other languages. IBM's DeveloperWorks has a short description of the Python version.

For information about commercial and open source test drivers, see this list of Non-GUI Test Drivers.

Related Testing Craft Pages

• There's more about test automation in the index of techniques.

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Summarized Discussion

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