skizz.biz

Consider the following test:

[Test]
[ExpectException(ExceptionType)]
public void ExceptionThrownByVerifier() {
doSomeSetup();
doSomeProcessing();
callSomethingThatThrowsTheException();
}

This is intended to test that callSomethingThatThrowsTheException() throws an excption. And lets say it passes.

The test is right - yeah? Wrong

If doSomesetup() throws an Exception then this is testing nothing - I’ll never know - and the test won’t tell me that it is useless.

The correct way to do this test is uglier, but actually works:

[Test]
public void ExceptionThrownByVerifier() {
doSomeSetup();
doSomeProcessing();
try {
callSomethingThatThrowsTheException();
fail("Expected Exception");
}
catch (ExceptionType e) {
//expected
}
}

If doSomeSetup() throws an Exception, then the test will fail, and tell me why.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, December 18th, 2002 at 11:10 am and is filed under life. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.