What is an ObjectMother?

Question

What is an ObjectMother and what are common usage scenarios for this pattern?

Answer 1

ObjectMother starts with the factory pattern, by delivering prefabricated test-ready objects via a simple method call. It moves beyond the realm of the factory by facilitating the customization of created objects, providing methods to update the objects during the tests, and if necessary, deleting the object from the database at the completion of the test.

Some reasons to use ObjectMother:
* Reduce code duplication in tests, increasing test maintainability
* Make test objects super-easily accessible, encouraging developers to write more tests.
* Every test runs with fresh data.
* Tests always clean up after themselves.

(http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?ObjectMother)

Answer 2

See "Test Data Builders: an alternative to the Object Mother pattern" for an argument of why to use a Test Data Builder instead of an Object Mother. It explains what both are.