Generating Unit Tests for Documentation

• Published in: IEEE transactions on software engineering Vol. 48; no. 9; pp. 3268 - 3279
• Main Authors: Nassif, Mathieu, Hernandez, Alexa, Sridharan, Ashvitha, Robillard, Martin P.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: New York IEEE 01.09.2022; IEEE Computer Society
• Subjects: Code documentation; Documentation; Java; Libraries; maintainability; Redundancy; Skeleton; Software; Software testing; Source code; specification management; Specifications; test generation; Testing; testing tools
• ISSN: 0098-5589; 1939-3520
• DOI: 10.1109/TSE.2021.3087087

Software projects capture redundant information in various kinds of artifacts, as specifications from the source code are also tested and documented. Such redundancy provides an opportunity to reduce development effort by supporting the joint generation of different types of artifacts. We introduce a tool-supported technique, called DScribe, that allows developers to combine unit test and documentation templates, and to invoke these templates to generate documentation and unit tests. DScribe supports the detection and replacement of outdated documentation, and the use of templates can encourage extensive test suites with a consistent style. Our evaluation of 835 specifications revealed that 85 percent were not tested or correctly documented, and DScribe could be used to automatically generate 97 percent of the tests and documentation. An additional study revealed that tests generated by DScribe are more focused and readable than those written by human testers or generated by state-of-the-art automated techniques.