On 2013-06-05 04:18, Peter Lundgren wrote:
I'm interested in trying to write a monkey patching* library in D.
Specifically, aiming to support mocks and stubs for unit testing.
I have a couple of questions:
1) What prior art is there here? I am aware of DMocks (does this project
still need a maintainer?).
2) How crazy am I for even thinking this is a good idea? Are there any
obviously better alternatives.
* I'm not sure if there is well defined terminology here (especially
applying these ideas to compiled languages). To clarify, when I say
monkey patch, I mean to intercept a function or method call at run-time.
I believe, in the case of D, this would require self modifying code
using techniques like those used here:
http://www.yosefk.com/blog/machine-code-monkey-patching.html
I would suggestion using some kind of wrapper instead of doing true
monkey patching. Example:
class Wrapper
{
private Object o;
this (Object o) { this.o = o; }
auto opDispatch (string name, Args ...) (Args args)
{
// Use this function to "catch" all calls and forward as
necessary to "o"
}
}
http://dlang.org/operatoroverloading.html#Dispatch
--
/Jacob Carlborg
