Is it OK to repeat code for unit tests?
        Posted  
        
            by 
                Pete
            
        on Programmers
        
        See other posts from Programmers
        
            or by Pete
        
        
        
        Published on 2012-03-18T19:44:34Z
        Indexed on 
            2012/03/19
            2:15 UTC
        
        
        Read the original article
        Hit count: 312
        
testing
I wrote some sorting algorithms for a class assignment and I also wrote a few tests to make sure the algorithms were implemented correctly. My tests are only like 10 lines long and there are 3 of them but only 1 line changes between the 3 so there is a lot of repeated code. Is it better to refactor this code into another method that is then called from each test? Wouldn't I then need to write another test to test the refactoring? Some of the variables can even be moved up to the class level. Should testing classes and methods follow the same rules as regular classes/methods?
Here's an example:
    [TestMethod]
    public void MergeSortAssertArrayIsSorted()
    {
        int[] a = new int[1000];
        Random rand = new Random(DateTime.Now.Millisecond);
        for(int i = 0; i < a.Length; i++)
        {
            a[i] = rand.Next(Int16.MaxValue);
        }
        int[] b = new int[1000];
        a.CopyTo(b, 0);
        List<int> temp = b.ToList();
        temp.Sort();
        b = temp.ToArray();
        MergeSort merge = new MergeSort();
        merge.mergeSort(a, 0, a.Length - 1);
        CollectionAssert.AreEqual(a, b);
    }
    [TestMethod]
    public void InsertionSortAssertArrayIsSorted()
    {
        int[] a = new int[1000];
        Random rand = new Random(DateTime.Now.Millisecond);
        for (int i = 0; i < a.Length; i++)
        {
            a[i] = rand.Next(Int16.MaxValue);
        }
        int[] b = new int[1000];
        a.CopyTo(b, 0);
        List<int> temp = b.ToList();
        temp.Sort();
        b = temp.ToArray();
        InsertionSort merge = new InsertionSort();
        merge.insertionSort(a);
        CollectionAssert.AreEqual(a, b); 
    }
© Programmers or respective owner