[xquery-talk] XQuery-based Java Unit tests?

[Hans-Juergen Rennau]

Hello People,

imagine a Java based system producing XML documents. How to perform unit 
testing?

I think the conventional approach of comparing single object fields (or for that 
matter, items) with expected values is not sufficient when dealing with complex 
documents. It is a problem akin to validation, isn't it? But validating against 
the fixed domain schemas is also not enough, as it is usually very specific, 
case-dependent contents that must be checked. 


So I consider working with XQuery expressions whose Effective Boolean Values are 
checked. I imagine that one can easily build a little extension of the testing 
framework which encapsulates the XQuery processor and reduces the coding effort 
to the habitual level. So we might be able to write something like

assertEBV(doc, namespaceContext, new String[] {
   "23 eq count(//item)",
   "empty(//item[@quantity ge 10 and not(@discount)])",
   ...,
});

where "doc" might be, for example, a DOM node, an XML text string, an input 
stream, a reader or even a JAXB object which is then marshalled behind the 
scenes into XML.

Then one might also think about creating a library of reused XQuery expressions, 
so that instead of literal expressions also name references are supported, 
allowing for parameters to be passed on as external variables to the XQuery 
expression, like so:

assertEBV(doc, namespaceContext, new String[] {
   "23 eq count(//item)",
   "empty(//item[@quantity ge 10 and not(@discount)])",
   "%basicAddressValidator",
   "%discountChecker(foo=bar)"
});

My questions:
a) Are there already tools available which support a similar approach?
b) Do you have suggestions how to refine the basic idea?
c) Or are there better alternatives - would you, for example, recommend to use 
adhoc schemas instead of a raw list of XQuery expressions, and if so, which 
schema language?

Any answers, thoughts or comments appreciated!

With kind regards,
-- Hans-Juergen