rspec users - Sep 2006 - support for arbitrary comparisons

Mike Williams contributed a patch to support arbitrary comparisons.
This is now in the trunk and will be part of the next release. So you
will now be able to do this:

result.should_be < 5
result.should_be >= 7

It also supports alternate syntax for should_be, should_match

result.should == 3
result.should =~ /regex/

Personally, I prefer should_be and should_match in these cases, as I
think they read better. Anyone else have opinions about that?

This patch also supports using methods that are not formatted like
predicates but act like them:

def whatever
  true
end

subject.should_be_whatever

I really object to this on philosophical grounds. Ruby predicates are
a beautiful construct, and I personally feel that if you''re writing
methods like that you are violating a ruby aesthetic. If you agree
with that, then you have to agree that supporting them in rspec also
violates the same aesthetic. To that end, even though they work, they
will not be offically supported at this point (i.e. you can use them,
but they may go away some day).

I''m curious to hear thoughts on this as well.

Thanks again to Mike Williams for supporting arbitrary comparisons.
It''s really a great addition.

Cheers,
David

On 9/6/06, David Chelimsky <dchelimsky at gmail.com>
wrote:
> Mike Williams contributed a patch to support arbitrary comparisons.
> This is now in the trunk and will be part of the next release. So you
> will now be able to do this:
>
> result.should_be < 5
> result.should_be >= 7
>
> It also supports alternate syntax for should_be, should_match
>
> result.should == 3
> result.should =~ /regex/
>
> Personally, I prefer should_be and should_match in these cases, as I
> think they read better. Anyone else have opinions about that?
>
I prefer should_match and should_equal too, but I don''t expect
everyone to feel the same. I think it''s great to support both.

I don''t see a problem with making this official now and add it to the
website documentation. Dave''s cheatsheet (which is not in svn - grr)
should be updated too.
> This patch also supports using methods that are not formatted like
> predicates but act like them:
>
> def whatever
>   true
> end
>
> subject.should_be_whatever
>
> I really object to this on philosophical grounds. Ruby predicates are
> a beautiful construct, and I personally feel that if you''re
writing
> methods like that you are violating a ruby aesthetic. If you agree
> with that, then you have to agree that supporting them in rspec also
> violates the same aesthetic. To that end, even though they work, they
> will not be offically supported at this point (i.e. you can use them,
> but they may go away some day).
>
I agree we shouldn''t support non-questionmark "predicates".
Let''s make
the day support for it goes away be today ;-)
> I''m curious to hear thoughts on this as well.
>
> Thanks again to Mike Williams for supporting arbitrary comparisons.
> It''s really a great addition.
>
> Cheers,
> David
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