The behavior of coherent functionality represented by several interdependent classes needs to be verified in order to test the integration thereof. Component tests should run as fast as unit tests by still isolating functionality, that is, testing coherent units. Therefore they aim to provide fast feedback by integrating yet more logic than just unit tests. Component tests verify business use cases, from the boundary down to involved controls.

Code level component tests are possible since the vast majority of managed beans use quite straightforward delegates. The injected types are in most cases directly resolvable without interfaces or qualifiers and could practically be instantiated and injected, even without embedded containers. This enables component tests to be implemented using the same testing frameworks as unit tests. Required delegates and mocks are set up as part of the test case. The test scenario we want to show starts from the beginning of a business use case down to injected controls.

The following examples will examine how to implement component tests with some basic code quality practices, that help writing maintainable tests.