Unit test helper methods?

user_225814 0
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I have classes which previously had massive methods so I subdivided the work of this method into 'helper' methods.

These helper methods are declared private to enforce encapsulation - however I want to unit test the big public methods. Is it good to unit test the helper methods too as if one of them fail the public method that calls it will also fail, and this way we can identify why it failed?

Also in order to test these using a mock object I would need to change their visibility from private to protected, is this desirable?

jmock helpermethods junit unit-testing java
9 Answers

If your class really is that big, then it sounds like you should be breaking out helper objects, not just helper methods (although extracting methods is often a step along the way). Once you've done that, your old class becomes simpler and easier to test (perhaps with mocks, perhaps not), and you can test the methods on the new supporting classes directly.

My preference is to test through the public API of an object. If that's too hard, then it's a hint that the object should be broken up.

user_751230
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