Once you have created your unit tests (or integration tests) you ideally want to be able to run them automatically whenever it suits you.
The process of executing the tests can be broken down into a number of steps, which may typically look something like this:
- Get the necessary files from the version control system
- Build the tests
- Load and run the tests
- Retrieve and store the results
- Possibly trigger some action depending on the results
The implementation of the different steps will vary depending on the software development tools you are using and the target hardware platform.
For example, if the target platform is a PC you can simply run the tests from a batch file and redirect the results to a text file.
On the other hand, if the target platform is a micro-controller connected to the PC via a JTAG interface then you need to use your IDE's scripting capabilities.
Automated Software Testing with Embunit
Embunit has a command line interface to allow you to generate the test harness source code automatically, but does not implement any of the other steps outlined above. The reason for this is to allow its use with the widest possible range of tools, rather than being tightly integrated with a limited set.
You are free to use your favourite scripting language such as perl or python, or even good old dos batch files.
You are also free to implement whatever steps you want; if you want to send an email if any of the tests fail then that is fine, just put it in your script.
Embunit allows you to retain control, fitting into your software development process rather than the other way round.
If you have any examples of automated software testing scripts that you would like to share with other users of Embunit, please send them to scripts@embunit.com.
Free trial
Download Embunit today and evaluate it for 30 days using the built in evaluation key. The first time you run Embunit just click the button that says "I want to evaluate the software" in the license management dialog box.
Need longer to evaluate?
No problem, contact us and we will send you a new evaluation key.
Attention all students!
See the FAQ page to find out how to get Embunit for free.
