UnitTestCreation

Writing Unit Tests

There are a few minimal requirements to setting up a new test from the standpoint of the framework and execution in a general sense.

Function Declaration

The function declaration has to include returns for the structures errs and warns. These structures are arrays of strings utilized for storing messages of each type from the unit test itself.

function [errs warns] = unit_test(varargin)

Main Function Structure

Declare local copies of the errs and warns as follows.

errs = {};
warns = {};

This allows you to simply append to the end of the list with sub-functions through simple string returns.

[errs{end+1} warns{end+1}] = test_case_x(args);

After this has been setup, call each test case in a manner similar to the above code block.

Test Case Function Structure

Test cases are discrete blocks of code that test a single range of functionality or error handling. Instead of writing a single test that would cover all aspects of the function it's best to write micro tests that cover a particular behavior or edge case. These test cases can also cover failure conditions, in which case the errs/warns should be filled only if the function did not fail as intended.

The rule of thumb is returning an empty errs and warns structure is good, anything returned should be inherently bad.