If an organization is using the object-oriented paradigm to develop software
systems it will need to select the component to be considered for
unit test. As described in Section 6.1, the choices consist of either the
individual method as a unit or the class as a whole. Each of these choices
requires special consideration on the part of the testers when designing
and running the unit tests, and when retesting needs to be done. For
example, in the case of the method as the selected unit to test, it may call
other methods within its own class to support its functionality. Additional
code, in the form of a test harness, must be built to represent the called
methods within the class. Building such a test harness for each individual
method often requires developing code equivalent to that already existing
in the class itself (all of its other methods). This is costly; however, the
tester needs to consider that testing each individual method in this way
helps to ensure that all statements/branches have been executed at least
once, and that the basic functionality of the method is correct. This is
especially important for mission or safety critical methods.