From: "Hal E. Fulton" <hal9000@...>
Date: 2003-06-06T01:49:27+09:00
Subject: Re: A unit testing problem...

----- Original Message -----
From: "Brian Candler" <B.Candler@pobox.com>
To: "ruby-talk ML" <ruby-talk@ruby-lang.org>
Sent: Thursday, June 05, 2003 6:54 AM
Subject: Re: A unit testing problem...


> Could you use a couple of IO.pipe objects instead, and run your mock
object
> as a separate thread? (or a separate process)
>
> ISTM that the mock object will want to receive characters down this pipe
one
> at a time, when it has enough to process a command then it will do it
> and send the result back. Hence there has to be some buffering 'slack'
> between the two, and it needs to be able to run asynchronously.
>
> Actually, for simplicity you could write your device simulator as a
separate
> program, which you run like this:
>
>    f = IO.pipe("/path/to/my/simulator")
>    # now you can just read and write to f as if it were as serial port?

Hmmm. This sounds neat. I've actually fallen out
of the habit of using IO.pipe, since it quit
working for awhile on Windows. (It may work now,
I don't know.) But now I'm migrating to Linux,
so why not?

Yet I don't want to build too much intelligence
into the simulator. I'd have to parameterize it
somehow, in order to handle different scenarios.

I will keep this in mind, but I'm thinking I will
try Jim's approach.

Thanks,
Hal