In software testing, a test harness or automated test framework is a collection of software and test data configured to test a program unit by running it under varying conditions and monitoring its behavior and outputs. It has two main parts: the test execution engine and the test script repository.
A test harness provides stubs and drivers, which are small programs that interact with the software under test (e.g. for testing middle ware and embedded software). Some unit test framework tools provide support for object-oriented software, others for other development paradigms. Unit test frameworks can be used in agile development to automate the tests parallel y with development. Both types of tool enable the developer to test, identify and localize any defects. The stubs and drivers supply any information needed by the software being tested (e.g. an input given by the user) and also receive any information sent by the software (e.g. a value to be displayed on a screen). Stubs may also be referred to as ‘mock objects.
Features or characteristics of test harnesses and unit test framework are:
To supply inputs to the software being tested;
To receive outputs generated by the software being tested;
To execute a set of tests within the framework or using the test harness;
To record the pass/fail results of each test (framework tools);
To store tests (framework tools);
Provide support for debugging (framework tools);
To do coverage measurement at code level (framework tools).
