Everything About Unit Testing in Java for Future Application Development

Everything About Unit Testing in Java for Future Application Development

Unit testing helps to find out bugs and anomalies before they impact application performance. This ultimately saves time and money. However, there are multiple best practices that are implemented to make sure that you get the best outcome from performing unit testing in Java application’s code.

This blog talks about unit testing, why it is important, and the best practices that can be implemented. 

Introduction to Unit Testing in Java

Unit Testing is an approach for testing individual units of source code to make sure that they work as per requirement. In other words, unit testing is performed to make sure the smallest parts of an application are tested to eliminate bugs.

Unit tests are written by developers, to make sure their code works as expected and does not impact another part of the program. Unit testing is a continuous approach to ensure that each unit works as desired and that it meets the specific requirements.

Key Highlights of Unit Test

A good unit test written by Java application testing services should include the below-mentioned properties:

• Easy to implement.

• Must be automated and iterative.

• Should be future relevant.

• Should run quickly with complete control.

• Anyone can run the test code easily.

• The result need to be consistent until the production code is changed.

• Should have features to run independently from other tests.

• If the test fails, it should easily meet the expectation while determining the problem.

• Should be readable, trustworthy, and maintainable.

Best Practices For Unit Testing in Java

Now that we are aware of unit testing and what characteristic a unit test should hold, let’s move on to the best practices.

1. Create Tests Before Code

It may seem inconvenient, but one of the key things a developer can perform is to write them before you write any code. This way, you can plan about what must be tested before you start coding. This can also save you valuable time by not having to write unnecessary code.

• Identify Your Test Code Coverage

Java unit tests are analyzed as per their code coverage, which indicates the amount of code they cover. It is an important tool to understand how effective your unit tests are, and can guide developer to improve them.

To identify what percentage of the code in your whole application is covered by unit tests, check two things: all the classes in your project and all tests for all those classes.

• Use Assertions to Validate Output

Once you perform unit testing in Java, assertions are implemented to validate the expected output. A developer’s code should not be checked by assertions; they should only validate the expected results.

If you apply assertions in your test cases to verify that your code is correct, then this shows that there is a flaw with how you are testing the application and probably means that test code coverage is low. The Java development company should take advantage of proper assertions to check whether the expected and actual results are similar.

• Free Unit Tests from External Dependencies

When writing unit tests, the programmer should isolate their tests from external dependencies. External dependencies include databases, web services, and other software components that code depends on.

Keeping all of these things running while trying to test the code is a pain. By freeing unit tests, developers can write them quickly and easily without worrying about external resources. One way to isolate these external dependencies is with the use of mocks and stubs.

• Prioritize Test Automation

Building your project with a build tool like Maven can make it simple to run unit tests. Build tools can automate the running of your tests, which saves you time. You can take advantage of a continuous integration server to automatically run your unit tests once your code is checked-in. This ensures that your tests are always updated and easily catch bugs early on.

• Keep Unit Tests Small and Focused

When writing unit tests, the most important thing to remember is to keep the unit tests small and focused. A developer’s tests should focus on one specific thing at a time. This makes them simple to write and maintain, and also makes it streamlined to find which test is failing if a bug is present.

• Prefer Unit Tests That Have Passed

Make sure the unit tests pass before checking Java code into a repository. This is because there is no benefit in writing code and then adding unit tests to it later if those tests are not run regularly.

When you perform this, you will see that your code will surely break when you perform changes elsewhere. When someone else tries to create the project with these broken tests, they will face errors.

Final Thoughts

Implementing good coding practices, like using meaningful variable names and comments, will simplify your Java code for application development. This will make both your and the developer’s work easier when writing unit tests for your code.

Unit testing, if performed correctly by following the above-mentioned best practices, can yield remarkable results. To follow these unit testing tips, hire Java developer to make sure that tests remain up-to-date and provide useful results. Moreover, they also add value to the development life cycle and do not become an overhead to maintain over time.

Frequently Asked Questions

1. What do you mean by software testing?

Software testing is a process, to measure the functionality of a software application whether a mobile or web application with the objective to find whether it met the specified business requirements or not. It is important to ensure that the product is defect free in order to produce the quality product.

2. What are types of testing for Java Application?

Different Types of Software Testing for Java Application

• Unit Testing.
• Integration Testing.
• System Testing.
• Mobile App Testing.
• Cloud Testing.
• Performance Testing.
• Regression Testing.
• Beta/Acceptance Testing.

3. How many testers do we need for our application?

The number of tester needed for a project depends on the size, complexity and scalability. Share your project requirements and after the analysis we will provide proper details on the number of testers.

4. What is the time duration of the testing process?

Time for the testing depends on the complexity and project size. The test plan on an average requires 10 minutes for development. In the general case, the development of a test plan without test cases and its review can take two-three working days.