Abstract
In the development of automated tests, there is an increase in complexity when the initialization or assertion are related to shared resources. Usually these issues are addressed and implemented in the test classes. This paper presents a pattern that suggests a solution to simplify the initialization and assertion through tests metadata classes. This solution allows each method to has specific assertions and initializations, isolation the solutions out of the test classes, allowing the reusage by other test classes. Current solutions like mock objects do not test actually external dependencies, because they simulate the external resource. For initialization and verification in the tests of these dependencies, other APIs are required in the test class and thus the test becomes more complex. © Copyright 2011 Carnegie Mellon University.