Inline tests

摘要: Unit tests are widely used to check source code quality, but they can be too coarse-grained or ill-suited for testing individual program statements. We introduce inline tests to make it easier to check for faults in statements. We motivate inline tests through several language features and a common testing scenario in which inline tests could be beneficial. For example, inline tests can allow a developer to test a regular expression in place. We also define language-agnostic requirements for inline testing frameworks. Lastly, we implement I-Test, the first inline testing framework. I-Test works for Python and Java, and it satisfies most of the requirements. We evaluate I-Test on open-source projects by using it to test 144 statements in 31 Python programs and 37 Java programs. We also perform a user study. All nine user study participants say that inline tests are easy to write and that inline testing is beneficial. The cost of …