What are fixtures in programming?

Question

I have heard of this term many times (in the context of programming) but couldn\'t find any explanation of what it meant. Any good articles or explanations?

Answer 1

In Xamarin.UITest it is explained as following:

Typically, each Xamarin.UITest is written as a method that is referred to as a test. The class which contains the test is known as a test fixture. The test fixture contains either a single test or a logical grouping of tests and is responsible for any setup to make the test run and any cleanup that needs to be performed when the test finishes. Each test should follow the Arrange-Act-Assert pattern:

• Arrange – The test will setup conditions and initialize things so that the test can be actioned.
• Act – The test will interact with the application, enter text, pushing buttons, and so on.
• Assert – The test examines the results of the actions performed in the Act step to determine correctness. For example, the application may verify that a particular error message is displayed.

Link for original article of the above Excerpt

And within Xamarin.UITest code it looks like following:

using System;
using System.IO;
using System.Linq;
using NUnit.Framework;
using Xamarin.UITest;
using Xamarin.UITest.Queries;

namespace xamarin_stembureau_poc_tests
{
    [TestFixture(Platform.Android)]
    [TestFixture(Platform.iOS)]
    public class TestLaunchScreen
    {
        IApp app;
        Platform platform;

        public Tests(Platform platform)
        {
            this.platform = platform;
        }

        [SetUp]
        public void BeforeEachTest()
        {
            app = AppInitializer.StartApp(platform);
        }

        [Test]
        public void AppLaunches()
        {
            app.Screenshot("First screen.");
        }

        [Test]
        public void LaunchScreenAnimationWorks()
        {
            app.Screenshot("Launch screen animation works.");
        }
    }
}

Hope this might be helpful to someone who is in search of better understanding about Fixtures in Programming.