- Unit test: Specify and test one point of the
contract of single method of a class. This should have a very narrow and
well defined scope. Complex dependencies and interactions to the
outside world are stubbed or mocked.
- Integration test: Test the correct
inter-operation of multiple subsystems. There is whole spectrum there,
from testing integration between two classes, to testing integration
with the production environment.
- Smoke test (aka Sanity check): A simple
integration test where we just check that when the system under test is
invoked it returns normally and does not blow up. It is an analogy with
electronics, where the first test occurs when powering up a circuit: if
it smokes, it's bad.
- Regression test: A test that was written when a
bug was fixed. It ensure that this specific bug will not occur again.
The full name is "non-regression test". It can also be a test made prior
to changing an application to make sure the application provides the
same outcome.
To this, I will add:
- Acceptance test: Test that a feature or use case
is correctly implemented. It is similar to an integration test, but
with a focus on the use case to provide rather than on the components
involved.
- System test: Test that tests a system as a black
box. Dependencies on other systems are often mocked or stubbed during
the test (otherwise it would be more of an integration test).
- Pre-flight check: Tests that are repeated in a
production-like environment, to alleviate the 'builds on my machine'
syndrome. Often this is realized by doing an acceptance or smoke test in
a production like environment\
src : http://stackoverflow.com/questions/520064/what-is-unit-test-integration-test-smoke-test-regression-test
