How do you know that your Unit tests cover all of your code? use a good Code Coverage tool

Unit Tests and Code Coverage


Unit Tests

In computer programming, unit testing is a procedure used to validate that individual units of source code are working properly. A unit is the smallest testable part of an application. In procedural programming a unit may be an individual program, function, procedure, etc., while in object-oriented programming, the smallest unit is a method; which may belong to a base/super class, abstract class or derived/child class.

Ideally, each test case is independent from the others; mock objects and test harnesses can be used to assist testing a module in isolation. Unit testing is typically done by developers and not by end-users. (Taken from WikiPedia)



Code Coverage

The Unit tests are a good measure of testing, but how much of the code is being covered? Did the unit test check all of the paths of the code flow?

These are the issues the Code coverage helps us solve.

The Code Coverage Tools run the Unit Tests we created and tell us explicitly how much code was really covered.

In order to better understand Code Coverage Usability I recommend the following article: In pursuit of code quality: Don't be fooled by the coverage report (Andrew Glover)


Java Code Coverage Tools

After some web research and software comparison, I came up with the following Software:

Clover

Cost: 1200$ | StandAlone + Eclipse Plugin. | 11/2007

JCoverage

Cost: 99$ / Year. | Runs only as an Eclipse Plugin. | 11/2007

Cobertura

Open Source. | No Plugin yet. | Jul-07

Emma

Open Source. | No Plugin. | Jun-05

ECL Emma

Open Source Only as an Eclipse Plugin | 11/2007


The leading software (That conclusion is widely web spread and seems quite true) is CLOVER.

But after removing the commercial options (Clover + JCoverage) and the “Not updated in the last year” one (Emma), the choices are limited to:

  • ECL Emma.
  • Cobertura.


My Recommended choice is ECL Emma because it is so easy to install and runs smoothly from within Eclipse, ohh yeah it also won the EclipseCon 2007 Best Open Source Eclipse-based Developer tool.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Profiling Java @ 2019

A good profiler can really help you in your work while coding Java (I assume while coding any coding language but I am referring to Java here) It can find memory leaks (Which object and how many of it takes the most of your limited memory?), CPU bottlenecks and other surprising data like the time consumed by each network call / DB query etc. Thus it is not so surprising to find many different java profilers around. I will try to map here the Java profiling tools lying around My short list of requirements will include the following: Profiler Requirements Constantly updated profiler (how a profiler built to profile Java6 will behave with Java11?) Clear GUI - As I will want to dive into the profiling data - it will be much simpler using UI Free (With a big advantage to the open sourced ones) (Optional) Remote profiling List of Profilers Dead Profilers (At least 5 years without an update) JIP - Java Interactive Profiler  - Last update 2010 Profiler4J - Last Updat
Read more

Shared/Pro/Managed Hosting for your site - which to choose ? (NO AFFILIATE LINKS!)

 You buy a domain and want to start your site running, time to find your perfect hosting. This is one of our first steps, and might be your most crucial one. I won't tell you which hosting company to choose, I will attempt just to clarify the picture. What are your Hosting options ? Shared Hosting You can choose shared hosting - obviously this one will be the cheapest option. In this category you might even find free hosting options, with or without ads on your site. Although this option sounds great for beginners as it is cheap and is comes with many promises from the hosting company (unlimited bandwidth, unlimited disk space etc.), there are no free meals, and as you are not alone on this server ( shared hosting), you don't really know who your neighbors are. So nothing is guaranteed, you might have a neighbor which takes lots of bandwidth, so you will actually have less to use etc. You might have a malicious neighbor which will attempt to hack your site using the common host
Read more

ZVR converter

Yesterday, a friend asked me to find him a ZVR sound file converter. What's the problem? I asked... Give me 5 minutes and i'll google it out. Well, I was wrong, finding a decent converter isn't an easy task, it took me at least 7 minutes (kidding). What's a ZVR file? It's a dictation recorder output file, used by the korean SAFA company, their recording machine is used mainly to capture sound files using its microphone during class lessons or whenever one wants. I just don't get it, why each company comes up with its own sound format?  grab a good and free existing audio format and stick to it! The ZVR files are very small hence their low quality... Anyway, a nice ZVR to WAV file converter was found. It's an incredibly small file (140kb). Download ZVR sound file converter  Enjoy, Avi.
Read more