On 5/21/07, Kevin Horton <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > I'm working on a small application that will respond to user input > via the console. It is a very simple interface, with user input via > "raw_input()", and the application produces result via "print" > statements. I'm using python 2.5.1 on OS X, installed via Fink, but > I'll also use the application with Movable Python 2.4.3 on Windows. > > I've got unit tests for many of the discrete units, but I still need > to write some tests for the user interface, to help catch problems > when refactoring code, etc. I've searched the web, but I can't find > any description of how to write tests for such a user interface. Any > advice would be appreciated.
Two methods come to mind: 1. popen your program from the test and interact with it that way. This is pretty easy with the subprocess module. 2. Modify your program to use a slightly more abstract IO interface. This can be as simple as a class that has input() and output() functions. Under normal conditions, it just passes the calls on to 'raw_input' and 'print'. To test it, you can monkey patch the program to use an alternative IO class that puts the test in control. Or if you're feeling fancy, you can use dependency injection to achieve the same effect. These are just off the top of my head, so there may be pitfalls. :) I'd probably favor #2 because spawning processes can bloat your tests up and slow them down. Then again, it sounds like you're looking for a system test, not a unit test, so maybe spawning a process is the right thing to do. By the way, there's a pretty new testing-in-python list that's quite good for this kind of question: http://lists.idyll.org/listinfo/testing-in-python -- Gary http://blog.extracheese.org _______________________________________________ Pythonmac-SIG maillist - Pythonmac-SIG@python.org http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/pythonmac-sig
