Understanding Unit Testing
TDD is a software development practice that places software testing early in the development process. In order to understand the concept of TDD, it is important to understand the definition of unit testing. Unit testing is a software testing approach that breaks a software application into small parts as units. Each unit is evaluated individually by running a thorough series of tests that are written specifically for that unit. The unit tests should be simple and short so that developers can easily identify errors in an application. The main aim of unit testing is to identify bugs early in the development lifecycle. A unit testing suite for a large application may have hundreds of thousands of unit tests, where each needs to pass in order to move to the next stage of development.What is Test-Driven Development?
TDD is a software practice where testers focus on unit testing. It is a highly structured approach to software development that includes the following principles:- Tests are written before the code that ensures the pass. The tests anticipate the correct behavior of the code.
- The development process proceeds one test at a time. Once a test goes from failing to passing, the tester writes the next test to move it to the next stage of development.
- Tests should be as simple as possible. Once the test is written, the development process should focus on making the software pass the test.
Implementing TDD
Let’s have a look at how development teams can implement TDD:- Write a Test
- Run the Test
- Fix the Code
- Rerun the Test
- Refactor the Code
- Repeat