Functional Testing of Java Programs

摘要

This paper describes an approach to testing Java code using a functional programming language. Models for Java programs are expressed as Quviq Erlang QuickCheck properties, from which random tests are generated and executed. To remove the need for writing boilerplate code to interface Java and Erlang, a new library, JavaErlang, has been developed. The library provides a number of interesting features, e.g., it supports automatic garbage collection of Java objects communicated to Erlang, and permits Java classes to be written entirely in Erlang. Moreover, as the library is built on top of the Erlang distributed node concept, the Java program under test runs in isolation from the Erlang testing code. The chief advantage of this testing approach is that a functional programming language, with expressive data types and side-effect free libraries, is very suited to formulating models for imperative programs. The resulting testing methodology has been applied extensively to evaluate student Java exercises.