One-Method Commands: Linking Methods and Their Tests

Although unit testing is essential for programming, current languages only barely support the developer in composing unit tests into new ones or in navigating between unit tests and their corresponding methods under test. We have taken several Smalltalk programs and analyzed the relationships between unit tests and methods under test, and the re- lationships amongst unit tests. First results indicate that most unit tests can be seen or at least decomposed into commands which focus on single methods, and that large portions of unit tests overlap each other. But these relationships between unit tests and methods under test are not reflected in current languages. We therefore first conceptually extend the meta-model of Smalltalk with one-method commands so that unit tests become both com- posable and navigable. Then we introduce a first lightweight implementation of this meta model using method comments to differentiate between the several test phases of existing XUnit test case methods.