Most companies and testing books use the term unit testing, but its semantics varies widely in different organizations. Lund University researchers launched a survey in a company network to explore this variation. The survey, which involved companies in focus-group discussions and a questionnaire, focused on defining unit testing, discussing its practices, and evaluating a company's strengths and weaknesses. The results indicate a common understanding of unit testing's scope, although the aim and practices vary across companies. Practitioners can use the survey instruments as a baseline for measuring their unit testing practices and to start improvement initiatives.This article is part of a special issue on Software Testing.
Index Terms:
unit testing, test practice, survey
Citation:
Per Runeson, "A Survey of Unit Testing Practices," IEEE Software, vol. 23, no. 4, pp. 22-29, July/Aug. 2006, doi:10.1109/MS.2006.91