From: Robert Feldt <feldt@...>
Date: 2003-05-28T08:07:33+09:00
Subject: Re: Project Directory Structure

On Wed, 28 May 2003, Jim Freeze wrote:

> > Yet another issue is whether people recommend structure within test dir? I
> > have started using the same structure as in lib and ext ie. the unit tests
> > for the code in lib/cryptor/public_key goes into
> > tests/unit/cryptor/public_key etc (I use "tests/unit" since I have
> > acceptance tests in tests/acceptance but maybe that is taking things too
>
>   Sorry to be stupid, but how do acceptance tests differ from unit
>   tests and why do you want to keep them seperate? Would not all
>   of them be necessary for full validation?
>
Sure. I'm not sure its very meaningful but I tend to call tests with
externally spec'ed test data acceptance tests and rest unit tests.
Example is in my cryptography library where acceptance tests use
test data vectors for RSA encryption specified in PKCS #1 RSA paper from
RSA labs while unit tests for RSA encryption has a large number of tests
on random data, exceptional cases etc. I'm not 100% sure this separation
adds enough value to warrant the added "complexity" but I kind of like
it... ;)

I think I like it because when writing the acceptance tests I typically
think about the externally visible API, the "end-product" delivered by the
app/lib/extension. I put on "a different hat" so to speak. Unit tests are
more nitty-gritty. Often the division is not meaningful though and
especially not in a dynamic language like Ruby where there is often no
idea in thinking about external and internal parts/classes; everything is
malleable.

> > also have a single script tests/run_all_tests.rb so that the command
> >
> >   ruby -Ilib tests/run_all_tests.rb
> >
> > runs them all.
> >
>   I use a top level make inside test and just do:
>
>     make
>
>   which recursively calls all my tests. I find this very useful,
>   but have not proved it for multiple OS's (ie, may not be windows
>   friendly).
>
Pro with having a ruby script is that anyone installing a ruby extension
can be assumed to have Ruby while not everyone will have make (ok,
many/most have). Also the run_all_tests script can do "smart" things like
searching for the tests to load/run, only run tests that matches certain
regexps. No biggie of course and I'm sure you can also do it nicely with
make.

Regards,

Robert