DScribe: Co-generating Unit Tests and Documentation

Test suites and documentation capture similar information despite serving distinct purposes. Such redundancy introduces the risk that the artifacts inconsistently capture specifications. We present DScribe, an approach that leverages the redundant information in tests and documentation to reduce the...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in2022 IEEE/ACM 44th International Conference on Software Engineering: Companion Proceedings (ICSE-Companion) pp. 56 - 60
Main Authors Hernandez, Alexa, Nassif, Mathieu, Robillard, Martin P.
Format Conference Proceeding
LanguageEnglish
Published IEEE 01.05.2022
Subjects
Costs
Debugging
Documentation
Joining processes
Maintaining software
Redundancy
Software
Software and its engineering → Documentation
Software testing
Software testing and debugging
Online AccessGet full text
DOI10.1145/3510454.3516856

Cover

More Information
Summary:Test suites and documentation capture similar information despite serving distinct purposes. Such redundancy introduces the risk that the artifacts inconsistently capture specifications. We present DScribe, an approach that leverages the redundant information in tests and documentation to reduce the cost of creating them and the threat of inconsistencies. DScribe allows developers to define simple templates that jointly capture the structure to test and document a specification. They can then use these templates to generate consistent and checkable tests and documentation. By linking documentation to unit tests, DScribe ensures documentation accuracy as outdated documentation is flagged by failing tests. DScribe's template-based approach also enforces a uniform style throughout the artifacts. Hence, in addition to reducing developer effort, DScribe improves artifact quality by ensuring consistent content and style. Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CUKp3-MjMog
DOI:10.1145/3510454.3516856