Parameterized Testing - Very Easy with TestNG's DataProvider

I was starting work on some parameterized JUnit tests the other day, when a co-worker*, someone who has a uncanny knack of reducing my complicated questions to simple answers, suggested, "Why don't you try a TestNG DataProvider instead?"

I was already trying to write the tests in Groovy, a scripting language with which I had very little experience, so the prospect of also trying a new test framework was not exactly appealing. But, I decided to give it a try. After a couple of hours of trial and error and self-inflicted syntax errors, I came to the conclusion that a TestNG DataProvider was the way to go. DataProviders are easy to use, and the coding is very straightforward.

TestNG[1] was developed by Cedric Beust and Alexandru Popescu in response to limitations in JUnit3. Actually, "limitations" may be too strong a word. In their book "Next Generation Java Testing"[2], they take pains to say that they developed TestNG in response to "perceived limitations" in JUnit3. In some cases, these were not limitations, but rather, design goals in JUnit that were in conflict to some types of tests. For example, the manner in which each JUnit test case re-instantiates the test class for a "clean" starting point. In this regard, TestNG supports test models beyond unit tests, for example, tests that are inter-dependent.

TestNG provides a couple of ways to support passing parameters to test cases. The parameters can be passed to the test cases through properties defined in testng.xml, or with the DataProvider annotation. DataProviders support complex passing complex objects as parameters. Here's how it works:

You define a method associcated with the "@DataProvider" annotation that returns an array of object arrays to your test cases.

Hang on - an array of arrays? Why is that needed? Here's why - each array of objects is passed to the test cases. In this way, you can pass an array of multiple parameters, each of whatever object type you want to the test cases. It's like this, say you want to pass a String and an Integer[3] to a test case. The DataProvider method returns an object of this type:

Object [][]

So that with these values:

Groucho, 1890
Harpo, 1888
Chico, 1887

The DataProvider provides:

array of objects for call #1 to test method = [Groucho] [1890]
array of objects for call #2 to test method = [Harpo] [1888]
array of objects for call #3 to test method = [Chico] [1887]

Or: this array of arrays of objects = [array for call #1] [array for call #2] [array for call #3]

Simple, right? Once you get past the idea of an array of arrays. Here's the Groovy code.

package misc

import org.testng.annotations.*
import org.testng.TestNG
import org.testng.TestListenerAdapter
import static org.testng.AssertJUnit.*;

public class DataProviderExample {
 
 /* Test that consumes the data from the DataProvider */
 @Test(dataProvider = "theTestData")
 public void printData(String name, Integer dob) {
  println("name: " + name + " dob: " + dob)
 }
 
 /* Method that provides data to test methods that reference it */
 @DataProvider(name = "theTestData")
 public Object[][] createData ( ) {
  [ 
    [ "Groucho", new Integer(1890) ] , 
    [ "Harpo", new Integer(1888) ] , 
    [ "Chico", new Integer(1887) ] 
    ]  as Object[][]
 } 
 
}

When you run this with TestNG, the output looks like:

[Parser] Running:
  /workspace_groovy/BlogCode/temp-testng-customsuite.xml

name: Groucho dob: 1890
name: Harpo dob: 1888
name: Chico dob: 1887
PASSED: printData("Groucho", 1890)
PASSED: printData("Harpo", 1888)
PASSED: printData("Chico", 1887)

===============================================
    misc.DataProviderExample
    Tests run: 3, Failures: 0, Skips: 0
===============================================

I'll return to Groovy and TestNG in some future blog posts as they are very "groovy" test tools. Well, as Groucho would say, "hello, I must be going..."

References:

[1] http://testng.org/doc
[2] http://testng.org/doc/book.html
[3] This is a very slight variation on the sample shown here: http://testng.org/doc/documentation-main.html#parameters-dataproviders

* Děkujeme vám Jirka! ;-)