From: Stefano Crocco <stefano.crocco@...>
Date: 2011-09-01T15:35:25+09:00
Subject: Re: Testing threads in RSpec

On Thursday 01 September 2011 04:18:48 James Lavin wrote:
> Stefano Crocco wrote in post #1019453:
> > You should try putting
> > 
> > thread.join
> > 
> > instead of sleep. That makes the main thread wait for the thread to
> > return
> > before going on. See the ri documentation for Thread#join for more
> > information.
> > 
> > I hope this helps
> > 
> > Stefano
> 
> Thanks for replying, Stefano. But I DON'T want the main thread to wait
> for the named thread to return. I want the opposite.
> 
> Thread#join keeps the named thread alive to completion. This would help
> if the named thread died faster than the main thread's code executed. In
> my case, it's the opposite. The named thread (playing a "song")
> naturally takes longer than the main thread. So I'm not clear how
> Thread#join would help.
> 
> My intent (which I should have spelled out) is to have the Jukebox start
> (but not finish) playing a "song" (for testing purposes, just a "sleep
> 0.2" or something) and test that it's playing while the thread is
> running. The "sleep 0.1" makes the main thread wait until the "song"
> starts playing before testing that it's playing.
> 
> --James

Ok. Now I understand what you want. Unless I'm missing something, it should 
work. 
This is a simple Jukebox class with its play method with a test to check it. 
Not knowing what your Jukebox class does, I can't say whether there are key 
differences, but the test here passes.

class Jukebox
  class << self
  attr_reader :current_song
  end
  def self.play
    @current_song = 'x'
    sleep 2
  end
end

describe Jukebox do
  
  it "should have a current_song" do
    thread = Thread.new do
      Jukebox.play
    end
    sleep 0.1
    Jukebox.current_song.should == 'x'
  end
  
end

Stefano