Re: [Springframework-developer] App Testing

[Darren D. <da...@da...>]

On Tuesday 21 October 2003 12:49, Alef Arendsen (JTeam) wrote:

> > iv. Dependencies need careful consideration in how they may
> > affect test
> > results given a widespread test environment.  The database
> > problem has
> > already been remarked upon, local dependencies such as db
> > drivers, different
> > versions of libraries in the lib/ext (or equivalent)
> > directory of the server
> > installation and even possibly different JDK versions are
> > elements that will
> > have to be dealt with which wouldn't necessarily be issues in
> > a testing lab.
> > It may be possible to report some of this information within
> > the test results
> > where sensible values can be retreived.  Does anyone have
> > thoughts on this?
>
> JUnit does this automatically for the VM performing the test, doesn't
> it? As far as server configs are involved, are the tests going to move
> around across server that much to make it desirable to automate this?

What I was thinking was that it's likely that the same application tests 
will be run in totally different environments, dependent on who can donate 
the resources to do it.  What we can't do in such a situation, is isolate 
the application server as the only variable in the test.  If a test passes 
on your server running Tomcat (say) and fails on mine running WebSphere, we 
can't say very much about that failure with any certainty.  You may simply 
have had a slightly different version of some dependency that we're unable 
to ship as part of the test but which still influenced it.

If it were possible to have the tests verify version information for major 
components and report them as part of the results, we may later see 
patterns emerging in the failures.  On the other hand, it may be nothing of 
an issue if we can indeed include all the major components (JDK and J2EE 
server aside of course) for whatever tests we're running.  I suspect for 
the most part we will be able to.

-- 

Darren Davison
Public Key: http://www.davison.uk.net/key.jsp