AutoTest

Introduction

AutoTest is a facility within EiffelStudio that helps developers create, manage, and execute software tests.

This documentation is intended to describe the AutoTest interface and capabilities. In addition to this material, you will find a tutorial entitled Using AutoTest in EiffelStudio: A Guided Tour. The tutorial employs a simple example that is used to work step-by-step through AutoTest's different facilities. The tutorial also explains testing basics and recommendations for using AutoTest. Lastly, the tutorial contains definitions for terminology used in both the tutorial and in these reference pages. It is recommended that you become familiar with these definitions, specifically:

1. Test classes and tests
2. The types of test supported by AutoTest
3. Target classes and target routines
4. Test results

Components

When you use AutoTest, you control things by using two components: The AutoTest Interface and The New Eiffel Test Wizard. The interface is used to access, manage, execute, and monitor tests. The New Eiffel test wizard is used to help you create new tests.

Caution: At this time, AutoTest will work only for project targets in the classic Eiffel environment. This means that projects targeted to Microsoft .Net will not be able to use AutoTest.

Recommended: During the transition to void-safe Eiffel, projects can be built using experimental mode. This mode is as stable as non-experimental mode, but includes some facilities that might break existing code in a few circumstances. However, since version 6.5, EiffelStudio itself is built in experimental mode, so we recommend that you use AutoTest only on projects also built using experimental mode. Experimental mode can be invoked by using the "-experiment" option from the command line, or on Microsoft Windows by following the Start menu path to EiffelStudio and selecting experimental mode.

See Also: Using AutoTest