very developer, at some point, has implemented a test driver to test his or her code. The alternative is writing a custom test driver for each test scenario. The custom driver would have to read the input data, parse it, turn it into objects, and then use those objects for each test scenario. How would you like to have a test driver that you don’t need to recompile every time input parameters change?

With the open source jDefend test driver suite, you can configure all the input parameters and pass them to your test driver using a single XML-based configuration file. jDefend’s parser class parses the configuration file and prepares all the test drivers listed for execution. It then executes each test driver?even on a different thread?for faster execution of the test scenarios. (Figure 1 shows the various components of the jDefend suite.)

Figure 1. jDefend Components: The jDefend suite is made up of various components.

In this article, I’ll demonstrate how the jDefend test suite can make your Java code testing quicker and simpler, and I’ll discuss how it also can simplify security testing.

jDefend in Action
To better understand jDefend’s functionality, follow the test procedure for a simple class. Begin with a Java object called Student.

Listing 1: Student.java
package example;public class Student{   private String name;   private Address addr;   public void setName(String n)   {      System.out.println(“setName called”);      name = n;   }   public String getName()   {      return name;   }   public void addressIs(Address a)   {      addr = a;   }}

Next, load a class called StudentManager, which has three operations: add, remove, and find Student.

Listing 2: StudentManager.java
package example;import java.util.Vector;public class StudentManager{   Vector students = new Vector();   public void add(Student s)   {      System.out.println(“Entering StudentManager::add(Student s) “);      students.add(s);   }   public void remove(Student s)   {      System.out.println(“Entering StudentManager::remove(Student s) “);      students.remove(s);   }   public Student findStudent(String name)   {      System.out.println(“Entering StudentManager::findStudent(String name) “);      Student stud = null;      for(int i=0; i

Test the StudentManager Class with jDefend
To test the functionality of the StudentManager class, you ordinarily would take one of the following three approaches:

Listing 3: Address.java
package example;public class Address{   String street;   String state;   String city;   String zip;   public void setStreet(String val)   {      street = val;   }   public void setState(String val)   {      state = val;   }   public void setCity(String val)   {      city = val;   }   public void setZip(String val)   {      zip = val;   }}

StdMgrTestDriver.java
package example;import testSuite.*;public class StdMgrTestDriver extends TestDriver{   StudentManager mgr = new StudentManager();   public boolean testAdd(Student s)   {      mgr.add(s);      return true;   }   public boolean testRemove(Student s)   {      mgr.remove(s);      return true;   }   public boolean testFindStudent(String name)   {      Student std = mgr.findStudent(name);      if (std == null)      {         return false;      }      return true;   }}

Custom Arguments
Custom arguments are used to describe custom objects. Custom argument tags take place within the scope of . The custom arguments can be nested to any number of levels. As an example, our StudentManager has a method add that takes a Student object, which is itself a custom object. So to describe the Student object, you will have to write the following XML format:

You should replace “Id” with the actual Id defined as part of the tag attributes. Remember the tag for the testAdd method:

name” Type=”String” Value=”Subbu” />  

However, the Address object also has another custom object, Address, as an instance variable. Also, the method to be invoked to set this address object value does not follow the standard “set” convention. That is, you don’t have a standard setAddress method; you have addressIs(Address a) instead. You can handle this situation using your XML tags.

street” Type=”String” Value=”1 Adams Ave” /> Author Note: jDefend is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or (at your option) any later version. 

This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License for more details.
Copyright (C) 2001 Subbu Vedula