From: James Britt <james_b@...>
Date: 2005-11-01T02:39:11+09:00
Subject: Re: <ANN> TeSLa, a Domain Specific Language for Unit Testing

obscured by code wrote:
> Well, it doesn't quite works that way (the implementation, that is... I
> tried to avoid using 'eval' as long as I could) but yes, all references
> to properties or methods are to an instance of the class where the
> tests are specified. If you take a look at the example.rb script
> included in the package, you'll notice
> 
>  test_method :add_item => [:item4] do
>    requires {@items = [:item1, :item2, :item3]}
>    assert {size == 4}
>  end
> 
> is indeed declared just bellow the 'add_item' method in class Catalog
> and that 'items' is a property of that class. 'test_method' will create
> a clean instance of class Catalog and execute the 'add_item' method
> with :item4 as a parameter and 'assert' will check that 'size' (of the
> Catalog instance) is indeed 4 as long of the 'precondition' stated by
> requires was met.

Ah.  Thank you for the clarification.  I often put my unit tests in the 
same source file as the class code, and being able to have tests right 
next to methods is quite slick.

> As for  behavior-driven development, I never knew it existed, thanks a
> lot for the link, I'm going to have a look at it right away.
> By the way, I never intended for TeSLa to be a "pure" unit testing
> framework, maybe even include concepts from Eiffel's Design By Contract
> (so far that's just an idea I'm toying with) so let me know of any
> interesting concept you might have about testing in general and I'll
> take a look at it.

I'm interested in the idea of having executable comments, so that the 
rdoc for a method both renders as examples for the reader, and can be 
run as unit tests.   I have no idea how your work might fit into that, 
though. One out-of-the-blue idea: an rdoc directive call that grabs the 
TeSLa code and translates it into an example using the normal calling 
syntax.

So,

   test_method :add_item => [:item4] do
     requires {@items = [:item1, :item2, :item3]}
     assert {size == 4}
   end

would become, in the rendered method docs,

c = Catalog.new
c.items = [:item1, :item2, :item3]
c.add_item( :item4 )
Expected results: c.size == 4


Or something.

Thanks,


James Britt

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