On Mon, 2 Apr 2001, Geir Magnusson Jr. wrote:
> "Waldhoff, Rodney" wrote:
> >
> > A small debate has cropped up in the threads on the existing and proposed
> > Commons packages about where to put the test classes.
> >
> > There are two basic options:
> >
> > 1. Place the test cases in their own directory, independent of the classes
> > they are testing (e.g., /src/**.java, /test/**.java)
> >
> > 2. Place the test cases in with the rest of the source, and use a naming
> > convention to distinguish test from non-test classes (e.g,
> > /src/**/Test*.java or /src/**/*Test.java, etc.) The naming convention makes
> > it easy to filter the test classes out of production JARs, JavaDocs, etc.,
> > as they do in my build.xml examples.
> >
> > As you can probably guess from my proposals, I'm a fan of the later (one
> > source directory) approach.
>
> +1
>
> >
> > Why?
> >
> > a) The build script and directory organization is simplier.
> >
> > b) The tests go where the "real classes" go. (The tests are *real classes*,
> > they're just not used in production.) And by "go", I don't just mean that
> > they are placed in the same directory tree, but rather that when you build
> > one you build the other, when you copy one you copy the other, etc.
> >
> > c) It's easy to see which classes are being tested and which are not, which
> > in turn encourages more testing. (To counter Peter's example, in my
> > experience this has encouraged more complete testing.)
> >
> > I guess it's just the XP zealot in me, but the "test, code, test" cycle
> > seems much more natural if it's all coming from the same place in the
> > directory tree.
> >
> > So, I lean toward the "single tree" approach, but I'm not married to it
> > either. Nor am I particuarly concerned that everything in commons does it
> > one way or the other (as long as a single component doesn't do both), but I
> > thought that if we we're going to make it a guideline one way or the other,
> > I'd state my case.
> >
> > Thoughts?
>
> In Velocity-land, we use JUnit for some fairly comprehensive testing of
> various aspects of Velocity. It's been a lifesaver. We keep the test
> case code in the source tree under /src/java/org/apache/velocity/test
> and so far it has worked fine. keeps things easy to find, I think.
>
One potential problem with this location (assuming the classes you are
testing are in org.apache.velocity) is that your tests will not have
access to package-private methods or variables. If you put the tests in
the same directory (/src/java/org/apache/velocity) or a parallel directory
with the same package structure (/src/test/org/apache/velocity) you can
avoid this difficulty.
> geir
>
Craig
