From: Ryan Davis <ryand-ruby@...>
Date: 2010-08-21T08:01:25+09:00
Subject: Re: Using Test::Unit and running operations before and after a test suite


On Aug 20, 2010, at 14:50 , Christopher Pasillas wrote:

> Hello all,
> 
> I am a very new Ruby user, trying to automated some tests.
> 
> I am using Test::Unit and would like to perform an operation once for the setup of an entire suite of tests and another operation once for the end/teardown of an entire suite of tests.
> The setup and teardown methods will not work as those run after each individual test method, and that is not acceptable for my purposes.  I only need these operations run once before and after the entire suite of tests, not before and after each individual method.
> 
> Is there an easy way to accomplish this within Test::Unit?

Unless you're testing hardware or other physical processes, this is often a false requirement. What are you trying to test and what do you need to do before/after?

One quick and easy way (assuming you're doing something like firing up a DB) is to attach your tasks via rake. But that can be dirty, depending on what you're doing and how you need to do it.

IIRC, the gem version of test/unit has a bunch of enhancements to it and I believe it includes a global setup/teardown. I dunno if it is per testsuite or per run.