From: Dave Thomas <Dave@...>
Date: 2000-12-24T13:55:49+09:00
Subject: [ruby-talk:8025] Re: Test-First in Ruby: an XP article

"Thomas R.Corbin" <tc@clark.net> writes:

> I love XP, so seeing it and Ruby together is neat.

I'm having a whale of a time using Ruby as a test bed to do unit
testing on a complex C program. I write Ruby wrappers for the major C
functions (which is a trivial exercise) and then I can use RubyUnit to 
do XP-style unit testing. It's remarkably flexible: once the interface 
is written I can even use irb to do interactive testing. A typical
test looks something like:

  def test_simple_chunks
    id1 = IntervalDataSet.new(5) {|i| i}
    id2 = IntervalDataSet.new(4) {|i| i+5}
    id3 = IntervalDataSet.new(1) {|i| 9}

    cursor = Ceres::IDAPI::read_raw_data(CHAN,
                                         START_BASE,
                                         END_BASE,
                                         nil)

    assert(cursor.more_data?)
    assert_equal(START_BASE, cursor.startDTM)
    assert_equal(INTLEN,     cursor.intervalLength)

    ids = cursor.read(5)
    assert(cursor.more_data?, "Data available after first")
    assert_equal(5, ids.size)
    assert_equal(id1, ids)

    ids = cursor.read(4)
    assert(cursor.more_data?, "Data available after second")
    assert_equal(4, ids.size)
    assert_equal(id2, ids)

    ids = cursor.read(99)
    assert(!cursor.more_data?, "No data after third")
    assert_equal(1, ids.size)
    assert_equal(id3, ids)
  end


Just the simple initialization of a test data set using a constructor
with an associated block would take a fair ammount of C, code that I'd 
rather not have to write for unit tests.

Anyway, back to the wrapping.


Dave