Language Constructs for Generalising Unit Tests: Research Proposal

Unit tests are a valuable part of the testing phase but they can be repetitious and difficult to maintain. This paper argues that a generalised unit test can concisely express a functional requirement that would otherwise be expressed using several similar unit tests. Initial ideas are presented for how large sets of existing unit tests can be used to inform the design of language constructs for writing generalised unit tests and for how automatic test data generation can be used in conjunction with generalised unit tests.