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In software testing, a test harness is a collection of stubs and drivers configured to assist with the testing of an application or component.[1][2] It acts as imitation infrastructure for test environments or containers where the full infrastructure is either not available or not desired.
Test harnesses allow for the automation of tests. They can call functions with supplied parameters and print out and compare the results to the desired value. The test harness provides a hook for the developed code, which can be tested using an automation framework.
A test harness is used to facilitate testing where all or some of an application's production infrastructure is unavailable, this may be due to licensing costs, security concerns meaning test environments are air gapped, resource limitations, or simply to increase the execution speed of tests by providing pre-defined test data and smaller software components instead of calculated data from full applications.
These individual objectives may be fulfilled by unit test framework tools, stubs or drivers.[3]
- ^ "Test Harness". ISTQB Glossary. Retrieved 10 September 2023.
- ^ Rocha, Camila Ribeiro; Martins, Eliane (2008). "A Method for Model Based Test Harness Generation for Component Testing". Journal of the Brazilian Computer Society: 8. Retrieved 10 September 2023.
- ^ ISTQB Exam Certification - "What is Test harness/ Unit test framework tools in software testing?", accessed 19 October 2015