I have presented at the annual conference of the Oracle User Group Ireland four times, in the Gresham hotel on O’Connell Street in Dublin. Here are my slides:
Oracle User Group Ireland Presentations
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The Math Function Unit Testing Design Pattern – Introduction
I have just posted The Math Function Unit Testing Design Pattern on my GitHub blog.
Here is the introduction…
This article provides an overview of a new design pattern for unit testing in any programming language, ‘The Math Function Unit Testing Design Pattern’. The data-driven design pattern involves repeatable, automated testing, and minimises unit test code (see example) by delegating to library modules the unit test driver, reading/writing of test data and assertion and formatting of results.
After a section on the background, the article describes the design pattern in two parts: the first deals with the concepts of transactions and APIs and why we should base our unit testing around APIs, while the second describes the design pattern at high level.
There are modules in Oracle PL/SQL, JavaScript, Powershell and Python implementing utilities to support the design pattern, and demonstrating its use. A final section provides links to their GitHub projects and some related articles.
Infographic: The Bauhaus, Where Form Follows Function
Wrapper Function – Purely_Wrap_All_Nets
Go to source location
Here is the complete function:
FUNCTION Purely_Wrap_All_Nets(
p_inp_3lis L3_chr_arr) -- input list of lists (group, record, field)
RETURN L2_chr_arr IS -- output list of lists (group, record)
l_act_2lis L2_chr_arr := L2_chr_arr();
l_csr SYS_REFCURSOR;
BEGIN
FOR i IN 1..p_inp_3lis(1).COUNT LOOP
INSERT INTO network_links VALUES (p_inp_3lis(1)(i)(1), p_inp_3lis(1)(i)(2), p_inp_3lis(1)(i)(3));
END LOOP;
l_act_2lis.EXTEND;
OPEN l_csr FOR SELECT * FROM TABLE(Net_Pipe.All_Nets);
l_act_2lis(1) := Utils.Cursor_To_List(x_csr => l_csr);
ROLLBACK;
RETURN l_act_2lis;
END Purely_Wrap_All_Nets;
This is a good example of how little code may be necessary when following The Math Function Unit Testing Design Pattern: The complexity of the code reflects only the complexity of the external interface. Here, there are single input and output groups, and so the code is equally simple, despite the unit under test having a larger degree of internal complexity.
A Note on Updates to Unit Testing Projects
This is a brief article to summarise some recent developments relating to my ‘Math Function Unit Testing design pattern’.
Further to an article I posted in October 2021, Unit Testing, Scenarios and Categories: The SCAN Method, I have updated two unit testing utility packages to integrate the category set concept explored there.
The Powershell utility, Write-UT_Template, has also been extended to generate a template scenario for each scenario listed in a new CSV input file. In addition, the Powershell package has new functions for automation of the unit testing steps both for scripting languages and for Oracle PL/SQL.
Experience with the SCAN method has led to two extensions that simplify its application:
- Introduction of a new visualisation, the Category Structure Diagram, for example:
- (Mostly) 1-1 mapping between categories and scenarios
The project README files have also been reworked, in particular with updating of the Usage sections to centre around the three main steps in the design pattern.
These changes can be seen in the two projects above, and have also been applied in the Oracle projects:
Here is the background section from the first of the latter two projects:
Background
I explained the concepts for the unit testing design pattern in relation specifically to database testing in a presentation at the Oracle User Group Ireland Conference in March 2018:
The Database API Viewed As A Mathematical Function: Insights into Testing
I later named the approach ‘The Math Function Unit Testing design pattern’ when I applied it in Javascript and wrote a JavaScript program to format results both in plain text and as HTML pages:
Trapit – JavaScript Unit Tester/Formatter
The module also allowed for the formatting of results obtained from testing in languages other than JavaScript by means of an intermediate output JSON file. In 2021 I developed a powershell module that included a utility to generate a template for the JSON input scenarios file required by the design pattern:
Powershell Trapit Unit Testing Utilities Module
Also in 2021 I developed a systematic approach to the selection of unit test scenarios:
Unit Testing, Scenarios and Categories: The SCAN Method
In early 2023 I extended both the the JavaScript results formatter, and the powershell utility to incorporate Category Set as a scenario attribute. Both utilities support use of the design pattern in any language, while the unit testing driver utility is language-specific and is currently available in Powershell, JavaScript, Python and Oracle PL/SQL versions.
This module is a prerequisite for the unit testing parts of these other Oracle GitHub modules:
Utils – Oracle PL/SQL General Utilities Module
Log_Set – Oracle PL/SQL Logging Module
Timer_Set – Oracle PL/SQL Code Timing Module
Net_Pipe – Oracle PL/SQL Network Analysis Module
Examples of its use in testing four demo PL/SQL APIs can be seen here:
Oracle PL/SQL API Demos – demonstrating instrumentation and logging, code timing and unit testing of Oracle PL/SQL APIs