The tester library includes a class tester.Main that defines the start of the program, i.e. it defines the method

that runs the program.

This is the primary way for a novice user to run the tests. If the sample data and all test methods are defined in the class named Examples the programmer just needs to declare that the program's public static void main(String[] args) method can be found in the class tester.Main.

In Eclipse this is done by defining a Run Configuration, in other IDEs one needs to set up the project parameters in a similar way. Please, see the Select Reports section for instructions relevant for the BlueJ users.

The main method in the class tester.Main starts the test run by looking for the class or classes that contain test methods.

The programmer can identify the classes that contain the test methods in several ways:

• The simplest case is if all data and test cases are defined in the class named Examples. The tester finds all methods in that class with names that start with test. Those methods are then run as the test methods.

  Note that these methods must take a Tester object as an argument; not doing so will cause the program to throw an error.

  Note that the order in which the test methods are invoked is not specified.

• The programmer may decide to name the class with a more relevant name, e.g. ExamplesBooks and organize the code in the package called books. The main method in the class tester.Main needs to receive the name of this class as its argument. In this case it would be "books.ExamplesBooks".

  Consult your IDEs for instructions on providing run-time arguments to the main method.

• The programmer may define the tests in a class that implements the "IExamples" interface. This alternative lets the programmer determine exactly which test methods should be invoked for this test run.

  See the Select Tests link for details.

• The programmer may define the tests in a several classes and name the methods with arbitrary names, providing the information about them through the use of Annotations.

  See the Annotations link for details. If the programmer uses the relevant Annotations in any classes involved in the test run, the test cases defined there will run before the tests defined in the "Examples" class or in the class whose name has been provided as the run-time argument to the main method.