[Cuis] Canonical test cases?

[Ken.Dickey]

On Mon, 23 Feb 2015 14:43:26 -0500
"Phil (list)" <pbpublist at gmail.com> wrote:

> I started playing around with a couple of example test cases to see what
> I ran into and came up with a distinct class to store all of these per
> test category (i.e. under Test-Files a class ApiFile which could have a
> method testWriteTextFile)  The rationale was that it might make sense to
> keep these test cases separate from traditional test cases which are
> free to make calls that users of the class (i.e. who are calling the
> supported API) should not.

You bring up a good point.

I suspect there are three basic cases:
  [1] A number of small test cases for a wide, shallow API.  E.g. Collection classes.  Many "small" usage tests.
  [2] A few deep calls which demonstrate a usage protocol.  E.g. open/read/close files, sockets; use library wrapper.
  [3] Sample/example UI code which illustrate how to build apps/applets/tools  [Color Picker, File List, ..]

A test class, as you point out, is probably appropriate for case [1], where there would be a zillion test<collection><access>API kinds of things would swamp a name search.  A class naming convention would be good here.

Individual test methods, with a searchable name convention, would be best for [2] where there would be few illustrative usage tests.

We could call out example code in a README doc for [3] where examples might have auxiliary architectural documentation.

-- 
-KenD