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  • What about your situation is "different" from any other type of testing done on software? People typically test a specific input and verify the expected output is received. Whether the client also validates your data doesn't really matter; unless you are also the client then you can do the test as more of an integration level test. Or are you not being asked to validate your code but to validate the message itself before passing it along as part of normal processing? That sounds reasonable but then raises a slew of requirements questions with regards to what happens when the message is invalid Commented Apr 10, 2015 at 14:44
  • @Dunk No, I am not also the client. Yes, I am being asked to validate the message, not the code; the code is already covered by unit and integration tests. I have zero doubt the client will receive a message it can understand and process. Whether or not they can or will accept the data in that message is less clear. It seems like a lot of effort to go from Them: "Something is definitely wrong." to Us: "Something is probably wrong." This probably boils down to incomplete requirements/specification, but as you said, it raises a lot of questions. Commented Apr 11, 2015 at 0:20
  • @Dunk The problem I'm having with verifying the output is that their request is "give me your data about x" and our response is "here is our data on x in the format you asked for". I can verify the format, but not really the data. Commented Apr 11, 2015 at 0:25
  • It depends on your customer and your contract. If this is an informal project/customer then you may show that everything you are going to do is already being done by the client and avoid it. If you are in a more formal environment then you'll have to do the validation even if it is duplicate work. It may seem like a waste of time but it likely will save your company time and money and could prevent potential legal actions against your company because you've shown you delivered as expected and when things don't work for the client you can show your software does. Must be the customer's problem. Commented Apr 13, 2015 at 15:00