Data-driven tests in JUnit and Kotest (and starting with TestBox & PHPUnit)

G'day:

One thing I did not look at in any of my examinations of Kotest, and then JUnit5 was how to have data-driven tests in each platform. I'm going to start with how I'd've historically approached this task in a coupla frameworks I've used in the past.

TestBox

This is so easy to do in CFML I have not bothered to find out if TestBox has a native / idiomatic way of doing this.

describe("some tests", () => {

    numbers = {
        "one" = "tahi",
        "two" = "rua",
        "three" = "toru",
        "four" = "wha"
    }

    testCases = [
        {input="one", expected="tahi"},
        {input="two", expected="rua"},
        {input="three", expected="toru"},
        {input="four", expected="wha"}
    ]

    testCases.each((testCase) => {
        it("should return #testCase.expected# when passed #testCase.input#", () => {
            expect(numbers[testCase.input]).toBe(testCase.expected)
        })
    })
})

I loop over an array of cases, calling it with each variant.

---

PHPUnit

PHPUnit has a slightly clunkier approach, but gets there:

class DataProviderTest extends TestCase
{

    public function setUp() : void
    {
        $this->numbers = [
            "one" => "tahi",
            "two" => "rua",
            "three" => "toru",
            "four" => "wha"
        ];
    }

    /** @dataProvider provideCasesForNumberMapperTests */
    public function testNumberMapper($input, $expected)
    {
        $this->assertEquals($this->numbers[$input], $expected);
    }

    public function provideCasesForNumberMapperTests()
    {
        return [
            ["input" => "one", "expected" => "tahi"],
            ["input" => "two", "expected" => "rua"],
            ["input" => "three", "expected" => "toru"],
            ["input" => "four", "expected" => "wha"]
        ];
    }
}

Same principle, except the iteration over the test cases specified in the data provider is handled internally by PHPUnit.

As an aside, I am pretty pleased with a small addition to the test output that PHPUnt has at the moment:

adam@DESKTOP-QV1A45U:/mnt/c/temp/phpunit_test$ vendor/bin/phpunit
PHPUnit 9.5.25 #StandWithUkraine

....                                                                4 / 4 (100%)

Time: 00:00.100, Memory: 6.00 MB

OK (4 tests, 4 assertions)

---

Kotest (Data Driven Testing)

Kotest is better than PHPUnit, but isn't as straight-forward as TestBox:

class DataDrivenTest : DescribeSpec({
    describe("Data-driven tests") {
        val numbers = mapOf(
            Pair("one", "tahi"),
            Pair("two", "rua"),
            Pair("three", "toru"),
            Pair("four", "wha")
        )

        data class TestCase(val input: String, val expected: String)
        withData(
            TestCase("one", "tahi"),
            TestCase("two", "rua"),
            TestCase("three", "toru"),
            TestCase("four", "wha")
        ) { (input, expected) -> numbers[input] shouldBe expected }
    }
})

It's pretty compact though. Here we need to add that data class (I have not looked at the difference between a "data class" and a "class that just has properties" yet: I had better). The iteration over the test data is intrinsic to the withData function, which takes a lambda that receives the test data unpacked as separate values, and is the actual test.

When these are run, they show as individual cases in the runner output (ie: within IntelliJ):

And in the HTML test report:

That's pretty clear.

---

JUnit (JUnit 5 User Guide › 2.18. Dynamic Tests)

This is pretty easy too (I was expecting some clunky Java-esque monster here, but no):

class DataDrivenTest {

    private val numbers = mapOf(
        Pair("one", "tahi"),
        Pair("two", "rua"),
        Pair("three", "toru"),
        Pair("four", "wha")
    )

    @TestFactory
    fun `Data-driven tests`() = listOf(
        "one" to "tahi",
        "two" to "rua",
        "three" to "toru",
        "four" to "wha"
    ).map { (input, expected) ->
        DynamicTest.dynamicTest("numbers[$input] should be $expected") {
            numbers[input] shouldBe expected
        }
    }
}

This is pretty similar to TestBox really. One needs that @TestFactory annotation to identify the function as - pretty much - a data provider, then one maps that as dynamicTest calls, which take a label and the lambda for the test (both of which have the data availed to them).

The test output is a bit clearer in this case, as we get to specify the specific test case label.

In IntelliJ:

And HTML test report:

---

All in all I'm pretty happy with both approaches here - Kotest's and JUnit's. I have to say I think I prefer the JUnit approach in this case. There's not much in it, that said.

The code from this article is at /src/test/kotlin/kotest/system/kotest/DataDrivenTest.kt and /src/test/kotlin/junit/system/junit/DataDrivenTest.kt. I have to concede I did not bother to save the CFML or PHP code. Ooops.

Righto.

--
Adam