unit test strategy

[Aaron Brady]

Hello,

I've developing a test script.  There's a lot of repetition.  I want to introduce a strategy for approaching it, but I don't want the program to be discredited because of the test script.  Therefore, I'd like to know what people's reactions to and thoughts about it are.

The first strategy I used created an iterator and advanced it between each step:
	self.op_chain(range(5), ('add', 5))
	self.op_chain(range(5), ('add', -2), ('add', -1))
	self.op_chain(range(5), ('discard', -1), ('add', 5))
	self.op_chain_ok(range(5), ('update', [0, 1]))
Etc.

I'm considering something more complicated.  'iN' creates iterator N, 'nN' advances iterator N, an exception calls 'assertRaises', and the rest are function calls.
	dsi= dict.__setitem__
	ddi= dict.__delitem__
	dsd= dict.setdefault
	KE= KeyError
	IE= IterationError
	self.chain(range(10), 'i0', (dsi, 0, 1), 'n0', (dsi, 10, 1), (IE, 'n0'))
	self.chain(range(10), 'i0', 'n0', (dsd, 0, 0), 'n0', (dsd, 10, 1), (IE, 'n0'))
	self.chain(range(10), 'i0', (KE, ddi, 10), 'n0', (ddi, 9), (IE, 'n0'))

Do you think the 2nd version is legible?  Could it interfere with the accuracy of the test?