[rspec-users] reusable specs - almost there

David Chelimsky
Sun, 05 Aug 2007 21:52:18 -0000

On 8/5/07, David Green <justnothing at tiscali.co.uk>
wrote:
>
> that''s a great point, but there are some things about shared
behaviours I
> don''t like. for example, I have 14 different contexts I''m
testing (and more
> to come) in 8 controllers.
>
> I can do this:
>
> describe MyController do
>   it_should_behave_like "context 1"
>   it_should_behave_like "context 2"
>   .
>   .
>   it_should_behave_like "context 14"
> end
>
> but then I lose the context info in the output, it just displays one long
> list of examples.

Interesting. This is kind of backwards from how I envision shared
behaviours. To me, a shared behaviour is a behaviour that is shared
across objects, not contexts. In other words:

describe "any controller", :shared => true do
  it "should do a when b" { ... }
end

describe "a specific controller" do
  it_should_behave_like "any controller"
end

As opposed to:

describe "any controller when the user is logged in", :shared =>
true do
  it "should do a when b" { ... }
end

describe "a specific controller" do
  it_should_behave_like "any controller when the user is logged in"
end

Subtle difference, but I''m sure it guides in a different direction.

The problem you''re experiencing is not new, and I''m definitely
interested in discussing solutions for it, but I''m much more
interested in ways rspec could improve than ways to work around
rspec''s deficiencies.

> The alternative is:
>
> describe MyController, "context 1" do
>   it_should_behave_like "context 1"
> end
> describe MyController, "context 2" do
>   it_should_behave_like "context 2"
> end
> .
> .
> describe MyController, "context 14" do
>   it_should_behave_like "context 14"
> end
>
> this way the context info is preserved in the output, but it''s
more work,
> especially across 8 controllers.
>
> another thing is, depending on the model being used, controllers will
> instantiate variables of different names. e.g. in the "dvd"
controller, an
> instance of the Dvd model would be stored in @dvd, whereas in the
"book"
> controller, it would be in @book . using dynamic specs, I can make my
> examples more specific depending on the controller being tested e.g. :
>
> # obj and var passed in as parameters
> it "should load a #{obj.class} object into @#{varname}" do
>   get :show
>   assigns[var_name].should == obj
> end
>
> I could put obj and varname into instance variables in the before() method,
> but they''re only available in the example block, not from the
example title
>
> these are minor complaints really, but as my project grows, they become
more
> of an issue.

Understood - although, if all of these controllers are behaving
exactly the same way with only a variable name or two difference, it
seems to me that the duplication problem is in the code, not the
specs. Perhaps there is some common code that could be extracted to a
module - then you can have specs for that module and specify that the
module should be included in each of your controllers.

WDYT?

>
>
>
> David Chelimsky-2 wrote:
> >
> > On 8/4/07, David Green <justnothing at tiscali.co.uk> wrote:
> >>
> >> I have a lot of controllers with virtually identical functionality
for
> >> most
> >> actions. I''ve been using shared behaviours to DRY things
up a bit, but I
> >> still have to create separate behaviours for each context before I
can
> >> use
> >> the shared behaviours
> >>
> >> what I have now is a generic file which contains all the
behaviours and
> >> examples common to all the controllers, and that file gets loaded
from an
> >> actual controller spec. The generic file knows which controller to
test
> >> by
> >> calling kontroller(), which is defined in the controller spec.
> >>
> >> here''s a very simplified example:
> >> http://pastebin.com/m6b47bae9
> >>
> >> It works great when I run the specs individually, but when I use
rake,
> >> specs
> >> begin to fail and i think it''s because the value of
kontroller() is set
> >> to
> >> whatever it returns the first time it gets called. Here''s
the rake output
> >> from running the specs shown above:
> >>
> >>
> >> FooController
> >> .FooController
> >> .
> >>
> >> Finished in 0.041793 seconds
> >> 2 examples, 0 failures
> >>
> >> I would expect it to print FooController and then BarController
...
> >> interestingly, if I insert ''puts
kontroller.to_s'' *outside* of the
> >> describe
> >> block, then it does output the names of both controllers as
expected.
> >>
> >> does anyone know of a solution?
> >> thanks
> >>
> >> dave
> >
> > I''m all for keeping things DRY, but NEVER at the risk of
clarity.
> > You''ve got to balance DRY and readability/clarity. Anybody
familiar
> > with rspec can look at this:
> >
> > ========================> > describe FooController do
> >   it_should_behave_like "All Controllers"
> > end
> > ========================> >
> > and understand what that means: A FooController should behave like All
> > Controllers. Perhaps there is a split second of mental mapping:
"Oh,
> > there must be some behaviour described for all controllers that the
> > FooController should adopt."
> >
> > Compare that to your example:
> >
> > ========================> > def kontroller
> >   FooController
> > end
> >
> > load File.dirname(__FILE__) + ''/all_controllers.rb''
> > ========================> >
> > First of all - how is that any more DRY than the example above?
> > Perhaps you save a few keystrokes, but if you think that makes it more
> > DRY then you don''t really understand what DRY is all about.
> >
> > Second of all, what does it actually mean? Where''s the story?
How is a
> > non-developer going to look at that and have any context for what that
> > means? I''m a developer and I don''t know what it
means. Sure I can
> > figure it out, but, in my opinion, it''s just nowhere near as
clear as
> > the example above.
> >
> > FWIW,
> > David
> > _______________________________________________
> > rspec-users mailing list
> > rspec-users at rubyforge.org
> > http://rubyforge.org/mailman/listinfo/rspec-users
> >
> >
>
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