Automated unit testing in a mainframe cics environment

An automated system for unit testing an application in a mainframe execution environment, comprising:

• a plurality of stub objects residing in the mainframe execution environment, where each stub object in the plurality of stub objects represents a different stub type;
• a command translator table configured with an entry for each command available for an online transaction processor, where each entry in the command translator table specifies a stub type for the command and includes a listing of possible arguments associated with the given command, such that each possible argument in the listing of possible arguments has a specified category type;
• a test configurator executing in the mainframe execution environment, wherein the test configurator is configured to update an address for a handler of the online transaction processor with an address for an interceptor routine and initiate testing of the application;
• wherein the interceptor routine, during execution of the application, receives a call for a particular command available through the online transaction process and interacts with methods provided by a command object for the particular command, where the command object is instantiated by the test configurator from a class representing the command type and is a property of a given stub object in the plurality of stub objects.

An automated system for unit testing an application in a mainframe execution environment, comprising:

• a plurality of stub objects, where each stub object in the plurality of stub objects represents a different stub type;
• a test recorder configured to receive a request to test the application and, in response to receiving the request, scans source code of the application to identify pointer data fields in the application and build a pointer reference table, where each entry in the pointer reference table includes an identifier for a particular pointer data field and a reference to a structure associated with the particular pointer data field;
• and
• a debug tool executing in the mainframe execution environment and coordinating testing of the application in the mainframe execution environment;
• upon encountering a breakpoint for a given program call statement during execution of the application, the debug tool retrieves arguments of the given program call statement and, for each argument, determines whether the argument contains a pointer and resolves the pointers using the pointer reference table;
• wherein the test recorder creates a record for the given program call statement in a test input file for the application, where the record includes the resolved pointer data.