[Tutor] unittest testing order...

[Steve Willoughby]

On 27-Sep-10 15:07, Modulok wrote:
> In an ideal world, I agree. This is possible for pure functional
> programming where state is avoided. However, when dealing with object
> oriented, imperative programming, state changes cannot be avoided.

Generally, a unit test should test a single aspect of a single unit of 
your program.  This is used all the time in object oriented programming. 
  You set up an object (or collection of them), set up an initial state, 
test the behavior, and tear it down again.  The state should not affect 
the assumptions of any other unit test.

> Thus if a method requires an object be passed to it, I'd like to
> verify that object is being constructed correctly by the object
> factory, before verifying that the method which uses said object, is
> correct.

No problem.  The object's constructor will have a number of unit tests 
of its own to ensure objects are constructed correctly, and the method 
has unit tests for them which test various cases about their behavior, etc.

I suggest picking up a good book or two about unit testing so you get 
off to the right foot about how this is usually done.  I'm not sure 
you're seeing the complete point of this.