Jtest 6.0 Adds Stability, Efficiency, Rules -- ADTmag

Jtest 6.0 Adds Stability, Efficiency, Rules

By Lana Gates
February 18, 2005

Parasoft Corp., the Monrovia, Calif., provider of solutions that automatically prevent software errors, announced the availability of Jtest 6.0 at LinuxWorld in Boston last week.

Jtest 6.0 represents the first automated unit testing and static analysis product that verifies more than 500 Java development rules and automatically creates JUnit test cases, according to company officials.

The significance of the latest release, as stated by David Rozenberg, a software developer at a large system integration and IT services provider company, is stability. The previous version of Jtest, he says, had some serious flaws and did not always provide the same results upon repeating a test. "Sometimes it simply died during testing," he adds. Version 6.0, he contrasts, does not do that.

Another significant improvement in Jtest 6.0, Rozenberg notes, is the ability to test cases more efficiently, "so I do not need to spend more time on creating test cases that they didn't cover originally," he says. He quantifies this into a 15 percent to 20 percent savings in development time.

There are actually fewer test cases in this release, he adds, but they provide better coverage compared to what the previous version provided. "I have a much smaller number of test cases, which allow me the same results as the previous version," he explains.

Still another significant enhancement in the product, in Rozenberg's eyes, is the increased number of Java development rules inherent in this release. The 500 built-in Java development rules in Version 6.0 amount to an increase of more than 100 rules from the previous version. This, too, Rozenberg points out, aids in development time savings.

In addition to greater stability, more efficient test cases and more Java development rules, Jtest 6.0 contains a number of other enhancements. The upgrade features automatic JUnit test case generation, goal-based workflow and a new object repository.

Version 6.0 includes increased coverage for complex code, more realistic tests in user-defined and automatic test cases via the new object repository, the ability to create unit test cases quickly with a flexible test case editor, the ability to parameterize rules and configure rule sets to meet the team's development objectives, the ability to test .jsp files, a security module that delivers more than 100 security vulnerability rules, faster generation of automated JUnit tests, and prioritization of unit testing errors.

Designed to help developers catch errors early in development and prevent entire classes of similar errors in the future by automating practices such as unit testing and coding standard checking, Jtest identifies code that can cause application crashes, functionality problems, memory leaks, performance problems and security vulnerabilities.

Rozenberg advises, "If your company has enough money to buy it, buy it. It will save you time and extra money in your development. That doesn't mean this product is a silver bullet," he clarifies, "but it helps a lot."

Jtest 6.0 is available for Windows 2000, Windows XP, Linux and Solaris. Pricing starts at $3,495 for a single-user, machine-locked license. You can learn more at www.parasoft.com/jtest.