Unit test names describe features

I have been working with unit testing for several years and I always had problems in finding the best names for my tests. I have been trying different conventions and I ended up with the practice of naming tests based on the behavior they test. For the following class:

public class SamePasswordsValidator {
    public boolean isValid(PasswordAware value) {...}
}

I would create a test:

public class SamePasswordsValidatorTest {
    @Test
    public void shouldReturnTrueWhenPasswordsMatch() {...}
}

Or:

public class SamePasswordsValidatorTest {
    @Test
    public void shouldBeValidWhenPasswordsMatch() {...}
}

When creating the names I think of the scenario and the expected behavior. One thing that still I am not sure about is the word "should", that is repeated (prefix) in all test names (DRY?). So maybe we "should" try to remove it:

public class SamePasswordsValidatorTest {
    @Test
    public void isValidWhenPasswordsMatch() {...}
}

References

  • Growing Object-Oriented Software, Guided by Tests (http://www.amazon.com/Growing-Object-Oriented-Software-Guided-Tests/dp/0321503627/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1373800858&sr=8-1&keywords=guided+by+tests)
  • BDD (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Behavior-driven_development)

Popular posts from this blog

Parameterized tests in JavaScript with Jest