From: Matt Armstrong <matt@...>
Date: 2003-01-28T04:42:48+09:00
Subject: Re: Test::Unit -> order of tests?

ahoward <ahoward@fsl.noaa.gov> writes:

> On Tue, 28 Jan 2003, Chad Fowler wrote:
>
>> I humbly disagree with this.  If the order of the tests is
>> guaranteed, it would promote temporal coupling between the test
>> cases.  It's better to let each "test..." method stand alone
>> without dependencies on the other methods.
>
> this may be true _most_ of the time, but there are cases where it's
> too inconvenient to decouple tests from their order, for example, i
> have a test suite for [description of interrelated tests snipped]

[...]

The point of the TestCase class is to make it easy to set up a series
of different tests that all need the same initial test environment.
So in this case, what you're describing is a test case with a single
test that starts with a blank database.

To implement this, I would suggest renaming all your test_XXX methods
to subtest_XXX and have a single test_all method that calls the
subtest_XXX methods in the proper order.  Have your setup method
create the database and your teardown method delete it.

This is better for many reasons:

    - you can no longer run your tests out of order, since Test::Unit
      only allows you to run individual test_ methods, not subtest_
      methods.

    - the order of your sub-tests are explicit and understandable (not
      relying on non-obvious magical properties like the sort order of
      the method names or the declaration order within the class).

    - fits better into the intent of the TestCase class -- one that
      sets up a consistent environment in which every test_ method is
      run.