Hi NgTzeYang, > I'm quite sure that many of u probably experience frustration in > writing specs for ur models' validations, its actually quite a > repetitive process. I'm wondering if there already exists a DRYer > approach to this, maybe something like the validation helpers > inhttp://github.com/rsl/skinny_spec/tree/master/lib/lucky_sneaks/model_... > ? > > Anyway, just want to make sure i'm not going to duplicate anyone's > effort in writing these helpers :]
I would love to see these, but I would probably prefer that any spec helpers not use introspection to test the behavior of a Model or Resource. It would be better to test the observable behavior because some of the things that you'd need to introspect, for say, relationships are private right now and will be changing within a month or so. Even if that wasn't the case, I think specs should test the behavior of the object not it's meta-data. So for example, if I want to test that "User has many memberships", I would write: - User instance should respond to :memberships - User instance should respond to :memberships= - User#memberships should return an Enumberable of Membership instances - User#memberships= should accept an Enumerable of Membership instances - User#memberships= should set User#memberships - User#save should persist Membership instances that are provided to User#memberships= And so on. The rule I use when writing specs for dkubb/dm-core is that for each method I test: 1) return values of methods 2) state changes to the object, if any 3) state changes to the arguments, if any 4) exceptions thrown by the method The above behavior is testing the things you care about most. Treat the methods as black boxes. Speccing with introspection is a short- cut, and it also makes it harder to refactor the logic later. An example of this is maybe down the road the memberships aren't retrieve by a direct join between the User and Membership models. Maybe you need to go through a few intermediaries to check permissions or payment status. If you wrote the specs the way I recommend it won't be a problem, but if you use introspection you'll likely end up having to rewrite all the specs. IMHO it's always a red flag when your specs need to change due to an internal refactoring of your methods. Dan (dkubb) --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "DataMapper" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/datamapper?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
