As found, there are some concenpts in the automated testing may be confusing. This is especially true when people have the experience of working for several companies.
Therefore, I’d like to spend couple minutes to make following concepts clear.
- Test harness
- Test framework
- Test runner
If you google image using the keyword “horse harness“, you’ll see a lot of pictures about harness. A well designed horse harness should be suitable for different size/type of horses. Similarly, in the testing context, a test harness should be something which can be used to execute different type and size of test scripts.
As for test framework, to the narrow extent, it’s more referred as how the test scripts are organized. In this case, test framework is exactly the horse given the “horse harness” context.
However, to a broad extent, it’s usually referred as the collection of tools, scripts and processes which support the automated testing. In this case, the framework can be referred as the combination of horse and harness given the “horse harness” context.
In addition to these two words, you may also see the word – test runner. Usually, test runner can be perceived as harness given the “horse harness” context.
Hope these concepts are clarified now.
good, will be easier to understand if have some examples.
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