What is Unit Testing, Integration, UI Testing & Benefits

Summary

This video delves into the importance of testing in app development, highlighting the inefficiency of manual testing and the benefits of automated testing, such as saving time, ensuring code reliability, and providing a source of truth for business logic. It introduces three types of tests: unit tests, which focus on small business logic pieces; integration tests, which combine unit tests to see how they work together; and UI tests, which cover the app's user interface and user flows. The video also mentions the use of the XCTest framework with asserts to validate test outcomes. Viewers are encouraged to stay tuned for upcoming videos that will explore writing these tests to enhance code reliability.

Takeaways

• 🔍 The purpose of testing code is to ensure that it functions correctly and to identify any issues that may arise from changes made to the application.
• 🕒 Manual testing of an entire app can be time-consuming and may lead to missed test cases or paths, which can be avoided with automated testing.
• 🛠 Automated testing helps save time by allowing developers to alter their work efficiently and verify its correctness.
• 🔒 Automated tests provide confidence in the code by ensuring that changes have not broken existing functionality.
• 📝 Tests serve as documentation, offering a source of truth for the business logic implemented in the application.
• 🧩 There are three main types of tests: unit tests, integration tests, and UI tests, each serving different aspects of the application's functionality.
• 🔬 Unit tests focus on a small piece of business logic within the app, such as properties in a view model that indicate loading states.
• 🔄 Integration tests combine different unit test modules to see how they work together as a larger system, ensuring that interactions between components are correct.
• 🖥️ UI tests involve testing the user interface of the app, including flows and interactions, such as button states when fetching data.
• 📐 XCTest is a framework that can be used to write these tests, utilizing asserts to check if outcomes match expected values.
• 🚦 Asserts are statements used in unit tests to validate that the actual result matches the expected result, determining if the test passes or fails.

Q & A

What is the main purpose of testing code in app development?

The main purpose of testing code in app development is to ensure that the code works as expected, save time by automating the testing process, and maintain confidence in the code by verifying that changes do not break existing functionality.

Why is manual testing of an entire app impractical when making changes?

Manual testing is impractical because it is time-consuming, as testers have to retest every journey and workflow, and it is also prone to missing some case paths, making it difficult to see how changes affect the existing code.

What are the three types of tests mentioned in the script?

The three types of tests mentioned are unit tests, integration tests, and UI tests.

What is a unit test and what does it test?

A unit test is a test that focuses on a small piece of business logic within an app, such as properties in a view model that indicate whether the view is loading or fetching.

How do integration tests differ from unit tests?

Integration tests combine different unit test modules to see how they work together in a larger context, ensuring that different parts of the application interact properly.

What does UI testing involve and why is it important?

UI testing involves testing the user interface within an app, including testing flows and interactions such as data fetching and button states. It is important to ensure a seamless and intuitive user experience.

What is the role of the XCTest framework in writing tests?

The XCTest framework provides a set of tools and assertions that help in writing unit, integration, and UI tests, allowing developers to check if the outcomes match the expected results.

What does it mean to assert a value in a unit test?

Asserting a value in a unit test means checking to see if the actual outcome of a piece of code matches the expected outcome. If the values match, the test passes; if not, the test fails.

Why are tests considered a source of truth for business logic?

Tests serve as a source of truth for business logic because they provide a documented and automated way to verify that the logic behaves as intended, reducing the risk of human error and ensuring consistency.

What benefits can be expected from writing tests for code?

Writing tests for code can provide benefits such as saving time by automating the testing process, increasing confidence in the code by ensuring existing functionality is not broken, and providing documentation for the business logic.

What will be covered in the upcoming videos of the course mentioned in the script?

The upcoming videos in the course will cover different types of tests and how to write them effectively to make the code more reliable.

Outlines

00:00

🔍 Introduction to Testing in App Development

This paragraph introduces the concept of testing in app development, emphasizing the importance of ensuring code functionality. The speaker highlights the inefficiency and potential for error in manual testing, especially with changes in the application. It also outlines the benefits of using automated tests, such as saving time, maintaining confidence in the code by not breaking existing functionalities, and providing documentation as a source of truth for business logic. The paragraph sets the stage for discussing three types of tests: unit tests, integration tests, and UI tests, which will be detailed in subsequent videos.

Keywords

💡Unit Testing

Unit testing is a software development process where individual components or units of a software are tested to determine if they are fit for use. In the context of the video, it refers to testing small pieces of business logic within an application, such as properties within a view model that indicate loading status. The script mentions that unit tests help ensure that each part of the application works correctly on its own.

💡Integration Testing

Integration testing is the phase by which individual software modules are combined and tested as a group to evaluate their relationships as a single unit. The video explains that integration tests combine different unit test modules to see how they work together, using an example where a validation object interacts with a create view model to ensure that validation works properly before creating a user.

💡UI Testing

UI testing, or user interface testing, is the process of verifying that a software application's graphical user interface (GUI) is functioning as intended. The video script discusses UI testing as a way to test the flows within an app, such as ensuring that buttons are disabled when data is being fetched from a service.

💡Testing

In the broadest sense, testing in the video refers to the process of verifying and validating software to ensure it meets the specified requirements and behaves as expected. The video emphasizes the importance of testing to save time, ensure code reliability, and maintain confidence in the application's functionality.

💡Asserts

Asserts, in the context of the video, are statements used in the XCTest framework to check if a condition is true. They are crucial in unit testing to validate that the outcome of a test matches what is expected. The script provides an example of asserting whether a number is even, which determines the pass or fail of the unit test.

💡XCTest

XCTest is a testing framework provided by Apple for writing unit and UI tests in iOS applications. The video mentions XCTest in relation to using asserts to validate the correctness of the application's logic during testing.

💡Business Logic

Business logic refers to the underlying processes and rules that drive the functionality of a software application. In the video, business logic is exemplified by properties in a view model that control the application's loading and fetching states, which are tested in unit tests to ensure they work as intended.

💡Manual Testing

Manual testing is the process of testing a software application by a human tester who interacts with the application's interface to verify its functionality. The video script contrasts manual testing with automated testing, highlighting the time-consuming nature of manual testing and the potential for missing case paths.

💡Workflow

A workflow in the context of the video refers to a sequence of steps or processes within an application that a user or system follows to accomplish a task. The script mentions that manual testing would require retesting every single workflow, which can be time-consuming and prone to errors.

💡Source of Truth

In the video, a 'source of truth' refers to a reliable and authoritative reference point for information. For software testing, having tests as a source of truth ensures that the business logic is documented and verified, providing a consistent reference for the application's intended behavior.

💡Reliability

Reliability in the video script pertains to the dependability of the software application and its code. Writing tests contributes to making the code more reliable by ensuring that changes do not break existing functionality and that the application behaves as expected under various conditions.

Highlights

Introduction to the importance of testing code in app development to ensure functionality and address issues with manual testing.

Manual testing is time-consuming and can miss certain case paths, making it inefficient.

Testing helps save time by automating the verification of changes in the code.

Confidence in code is achieved through testing to ensure existing code is not broken.

Tests provide documentation and a source of truth for business logic.

Three types of tests discussed: unit tests, integration tests, and UI tests.

Unit tests focus on small pieces of business logic within an application.

Integration tests combine different unit test modules to see how they work together.

UI tests are used to test the user interface and user flows within an app.

XCTest framework is introduced for writing tests with asserts.

Asserts are used to check if the outcome matches the expected value in a unit test.

Explanation of how asserts work with an example of checking if a number is even.

Upcoming videos will cover how to write different types of tests to improve code reliability.

Invitation for feedback in the comment section for further engagement.

Encouragement to like, subscribe, and enable notifications for new video updates.

Closing remarks and sign-off for the video.

Transcripts

hey and welcome back to another video

and in this video we're going to discuss

unit testing and integration tests as

well as UI test and the benefits so

what's the point of testing your code

well when you're building your apps you

need to make sure that your code

actually works now what you could do is

you could test your whole app manually

every time but when you make this change

this would actually come with a few

issues so let's say for example if youed

to make a change within your application

not only is this time consuming because

you're actually going to have to spend a

lot of time retesting every single

journey and every workflow and whatnot

it's also possible to miss some case

paths as well that you want to test and

you can't easily just see how changes

affect the existing code so we can solve

some of these common problems with test

and test allow us to make sure that we

can actually save time by alterating our

work and making sure that it's correct

we can also have confidence in our code

by making sure that we haven't broken

existing code and we can provide

document

since we now have a source of Truth for

our business logic so when you actually

write tests there's actually three types

of test that you could write and that is

a unit test or unit testing there's

integration test or integration testings

and also UI testing as well so what's

the difference between them well unit

test this is usually a small piece of

business logic within your app so what

do I mean by this so let's say we look

at our you know our view model that

we've been working on in the past couple

videos we actually have some properties

in there for telling us whether our view

is loading and is fetching and whatnot

this is business logic that we wrote

specifically within our application so

business logic is just basically a small

part of like some kind of

object now you have integration testing

and integration test actually combine

different unit test modules in to see

how they work together into a larger

test so an example of this is where we

actually have our validation object and

our create view model they actually both

interact with one another so when we

write an integration test we want to

make sure that our validation is

actually working properly before we try

to create a user and the final test that

we

have is our UI test and this is usually

the testing of the UI within our app so

with the UI testing we're able to test

our flows as well so a good example of

this is when we fetching data from you

know our service are our buttons

disabled so these are the different

types of test that we can have within

our app so in order to actually write

these tests we can actually use an XC

test so what does this mean well the xct

framework actually comes with something

called asserts and when you write a unit

test you actually need to assert a value

so what does it mean well in a nutshell

when you AER of value what you're

essentially doing is checking to see if

the outcome matches what you've provided

Ed so in this example that I've got on

the screen here we're actually asserting

to see if the number is even or not so

if it's true or false it will actually

depend on whether the unit test passes

or fails so in the upcoming videos in

this course we'll take a look at these

different types of tests and how we can

actually write them to help make our

code more reliable so that's everything

in this video if you enjoy this video

I'd love to hear your feedback in the

comment section below also as well if

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