Question

I need to know about c# test driver and its significance. how and why is it implemented….could any one help out to know about this as am a .net developer on .net not a tester….please let me know..
Thanks.

Answer 1

A “test driver” is what some people refer to when they mean an application, probably only even developed for testing and not to be shipped, that is used to test the functionality of a software product.

Such “test drivers” are particularly useful for products that only come as a DLL, library or framework, i.e. with no real “end user application” as such.

Arguably, during testing Unit Tests could also be employed and thus constitute the “test driver”. However, in my experience, a test driver could also server other purposes, that exceed those of a typical unit tests, like:

• A showcase application for your, libraries/tools functionality
• Perform some sort of “integration testing” (including database access, etc.) which you would not do in your “average” unit tests.

For example, we once developed some sort of application server. To test it, we would provide a separate test client, that could execute requests multiple times, concurrently, record statistics, etc. (somewhat like Apache JMeter or comparable tools).

I know this is all somewhat vague and broad, but – no offense – so is your question 😉