mock / stub / fake / dummy
·1 min
Referring to Martin flower’s article:
- Dummy objects are passed around but never actually used. Usually they are just used to fill parameter lists.
- Fake objects actually have working implementations, but usually take some shortcut which makes them not suitable for production (an in memory database is a good example).
- Stubs provide canned answers to calls made during the test, usually not responding at all to anything outside what’s programmed in for the test.
- Mocks are what we are talking about here: objects pre-programmed with expectations which form a specification of the calls they are expected to receive.
As stated in this SO answer:
Both mocks and stubs testing give an answer for the question: What is the result?
Testing with mocks are also interested in: How the result has been achieved?