[antlr-interest] ANTLR and Unit Testing

Martin Probst mail at martin-probst.com
Tue Apr 4 03:03:01 PDT 2006


> Maybe you can test the lexer and the parser together, but I would
> suggest that you consider testing one on top of the other. I.e, test the
> lexer and parser, then the treewalker(s), then the code generation.
> 
> IMHO, there should be a set of tests for each phase. Granted, it might
> be a bit tedious but you will thank yourself in the long run.

It's actually most likely that testing the whole thing at once will turn 
out to be more tedious in the long run. If a change introduces a bug in 
the lexical/parser/treewalker stage, you'd want to see those tests 
failing, but if the bug is actually in the translation or interpretation 
stage, you'll know quickly because the lexing & parsing tests are not 
failing. Also, it can be very difficult to test for certain 
functionality if you conduct end-to-end tests (instead of unit tests).

This said, you still need end-to-end tests anyways.

Martin


More information about the antlr-interest mailing list