Unit testing, in case you are not familiar with the terminology, refers to testing individual components of an application thoroughly before they are integrated with the rest of the application. This allows a developer to run the component through many series of tests to ensure it performs as expected and desired before integrating it into a finished application.

Every NEF XML tag you use to declare your application's requirements has an automated means to verify and test the declaration within the Console or your application. At this point you may begin to involve your customers by demonstrating the forms, validation, pages, etc within the Console or application -- before you start writing or customizing any Java code.

Unit Testing and Demonstrating the Presentation Layer

NEFS enables you to unit test your application's presentation layer through the Presentation tab within the Console.

Dialogs

Each dialog may be unit tested inside Console to ensure that user requirements are being met and allowing analysts or end users to start reviewing a running application quickly and without programmers writing test harnesses. As soon as the XML is completed, the test harness is automatically created and may be executed by anyone with access to Console.

Figure 2.3. Automatically Generated Unit Test for a Dialog

Unit Testing the Data Management Layer

NEFS enables you to unit test your application's data management layer through the Console. To unit test different components of the data management layer, go to Data Management tab within the Console.

SQL Queries

Each SQL statement may be unit tested inside Console to ensure that user requirements are being met. As soon as the XML is completed, the test harness is automatically created and may be executed by anyone with access to Console. The statement, along with any reports/views can be tested without creating any additional code.

Table 2.1. Automatically Generate Unit Test Harness for SQL Queries