Service Stub

Removes dependence upon problematic services during testing.

• Overview
• How It Works
• When to Use It

Overview

Enterprise systems often depend on access to third-party services. Quite likely, such dependencies will lead to times when tests can’t execute, and then the development process is broken.

Replacing the service during testing with a Service Stub that runs locally, fast, and in memory, improves your development experience.

How It Works

• The first step is to define access to the service with a Gateway. The Gateway should not be a class but rather a Separated Interface so you can have one implementation that calls the real service and at least one that’s only a Service Stub.

• The desired implementation of the Gateway should be loaded using a Plugin.

When to Use It

Use Service Stub whenever you find that dependence on a particular service is hindering your development and testing.

Many practicioners of Extreme Programming use the term Mock Object, for a Service Stub.