From: Greg Willits <lists@...>
Date: 2009-07-26T02:56:03+09:00
Subject: Re: Unit Testing and Instance Vars

David A. Black wrote:
> On Sat, 25 Jul 2009, Greg Willits wrote:

>>  private
>>
>>    some_source.each do |this_source|
>>    end
>> Either way, I still can't see the results of @raw_addresses. I find
>> myself having to expose :raw_addresses so that tests can see the
>> results, but there really is no need for :raw_addresses to be exposed,
>> and it shouldn't be a part of the interface.
>>
>> Questions:
>> 1) Any consensus on the parameters issue (*always* pass params, or
>> *usually*)?
>> 2) What's the 'best practice' approach to seeing the results of
>> @raw_addresses?
> 
> The key word, I think, is "interface", which in your example consists
> of initialize and load_addresses. A year or so ago someone asked on
> either this list or the Rails list about testing private methods, and
> I said, yes, test all your private methods. David Chelimsky chimed in
> with the observation that testing private methods is not generally
> considered best practice; rather, the private methods are there to
> help the class do what it has to do so that its public interface will
> act correctly.

Ah, yes. I recall reading some debates about that. When thinking about 
this, I was indeed going after the test all methods stance, but I 
actually like the idea of testing the interface. If changing an 
implementation doesn't break the application, it could be argued that it 
shouldn't break the tests either.

-- gw

-- 
Posted via http://www.ruby-forum.com/.