Automatically generating test cases

Question

I'm writing a script a script to test a third party XML interface, using the python unittest module.

First of all, is this a reasonable use of unittest, using an API we wrote, but actually testing the interface it's connecting to?

Secondly, I have a huge list of fields I want to test. The code to test each field is identical. I want to test each field as a separate test case, so that they all get tested, even if one fails, but I don't want to have to copy and paste the code for each field changing just the field name. What would be the best way of doing this using unittest?

Answer 1

In general, test generators brake the rule of unit tests.

I would not test every bit of code, because the profit is less compared to the effort to build these silly tests.

So try to write a test generator, but's not as meant by the inventor.