Patent ID: 7681180

Claim:
At a computer system, a method for automatically generating unit tests by instantiating one or more generated input parameter values, the unit tests being derived from a corresponding parameterized unit test, the method comprising: an act of accessing a parameterized unit test, the parameterized unit test configured to test any of a plurality of behaviors of the unit of software code by providing a base outline from which any of a plurality of corresponding other unit tests can be formed to test individual behaviors from among the plurality of behaviors; an act of generating input parameter values for testing an individual behavior of the unit of software code; an act of automatically generating a unit test from the parameterized unit test by applying the one or more generated input parameter values to the parameterized unit test so as to modify the base outline into a unit test specifically configured for testing the individual behavior of the unit of software code, the unit test configured to assess the functionality of the individual behavior of the unit of software code, the generated input parameter values corresponding to parameters in the unit of software code that are to be tested; an act of submitting the unit of software code and the automatically generated unit test to a software testing program to test execution of the unit of software code based on the automatically generated unit test; an act of receiving test results from the software testing program, the test results including a test results status generated from executing the unit of software code based on the automatically generated unit test; and an act of providing feedback to a user, the feedback indicating at least the test results status.