title: unit testing extended class base functionality
body: <p>I have an abstract Record class that represents records in the database. Each record must have at least the following columns: id, created, updated. </p>
  
  <p>I then extend the Record class to represent rows in specific tables. For example, i have the following classes that extend Record: Customer, Job, Location, and Company. In each of these i define a static "table_name" variable and static variables that represent their columns. </p>
  
  <p>I'd like to be able to test these classes for basic functionality that all extensions of Record should have. I could write a test class for each one to test for these things but i would basically be copying and pasting those tests for each extension of Record class which doesn't seem right. </p>
  
  <p>I thought about writing a test class and and using a data provider with these objects in an array but i wouldn't know which object would cause the failure if there was a failing test. </p>
  
  <p>There's got to be a way of having some sort of TestAllExtensionsOfRecordClass test class and then run my objects through it and be able to tell which object caused a failure. </p>
  
  <p>Suggestions?</p>