Is duplicated code more tolerable in unit tests?

Question

I ruined several unit tests some time ago when I went through and refactored them to make them more DRY--the intent of each test was no longer clear. It seems there is a tr

Answer 1

I agree. The trade off exists but is different in different places.

I'm more likely to refactor duplicated code for setting up state. But less likely to refactor the part of the test that actually exercises the code. That said, if exercising the code always takes several lines of code then I might think that is a smell and refactor the actual code under test. And that will improve readability and maintainability of both the code and the tests.