I have very little experience with Ruby. I am using RSpec to test a
cross platform C++ library. I am using a shell script (and batch file)
to run the tests with several different compilers.
I do no want to put the details of the different compilers in the RSpec
files, but am thinking about rewriting to driver scripts in Ruby. Can
someone with more Ruby experience give me some guidance as to how best
do this.
Thank you,
-EdK
--
Posted via http://www.ruby-forum.com/.
On 16 Jan 2009, at 17:44, Ed Keith wrote:> I have very little experience with Ruby. I am using RSpec to test a > cross platform C++ library. I am using a shell script (and batch file) > to run the tests with several different compilers. > > I do no want to put the details of the different compilers in the > RSpec > files, but am thinking about rewriting to driver scripts in Ruby. Can > someone with more Ruby experience give me some guidance as to how best > do this.You don''t provide enough information for me to be sure, but what you describe sounds sufficiently high-level enough to make Cucumber[1] worth looking into. If you search the archives of this list I posted a very bad example of using Cucumber to spec binaries written in other languages (I used sort, I think). Ashley [1] http://wiki.github.com/aslakhellesoy/cucumber -- http://www.patchspace.co.uk/ http://aviewfromafar.net/ http://twitter.com/ashleymoran
Ashley Moran wrote:> On 16 Jan 2009, at 17:44, Ed Keith wrote:> You don''t provide enough information for me to be sure, but what you > describe sounds sufficiently high-level enough to make Cucumber[1] > worth looking into. > > If you search the archives of this list I posted a very bad example of > using Cucumber to spec binaries written in other languages (I used > sort, I think). > > Ashley > > [1] http://wiki.github.com/aslakhellesoy/cucumber > > > -- > http://www.patchspace.co.uk/ > http://aviewfromafar.net/ > http://twitter.com/ashleymoranI looked at Cucumber, I''m not clear on what it does, but I do not think it is what I need. Going into the details: I am testing a C++ library. There are many test classes to test different aspects of the library. Some of the test cases as supposed to fail to compile when the library is misused. At first I used ruby to run the compilers and check the return value against 0 for success. For the tested that were supposed to fail to compile, that was all I needed. For the tests that were supposed to work I then ran the generated executable and tested the return value. So far everything is great. The library is supposed to be portable. So I am testing it with several different compilers on several different operating systems. I do not want to put platform specific information into the RSpec files, so I wrote shell scripts of Unix and batch files on windows to set up the environment for each compiler and then call RSpec with each configuration environment. Now I have two problems: 1) Batch language is real pain to do anything nontrivial in; 2) I have two sets of driver scripts to maintain. I should be able to solve both problems by using a portable scripting language for the driver scripts. My first thought was to use Python, since I know it. This will work, but there are two things that make me think it is suboptimal: 1) It will require that Python be installed on all test systems; 2) It will require that the python interpreter invoke the Ruby interpreter, this is very inefficient, not to mention ugly. I can easily solve the first problem by writing the driver scrips in Ruby since Ruby must be installed to run RSpec, and I intended to learn Ruby eventually anyway. My first, naive, attempt works, but I am running the ruby interpreter inside the ruby interpreter recursively when I call RSpec ("system spec spec1.rb"). There must be a better way to invoke RSpec without recursively invoking the Ruby interpreter. -- Posted via http://www.ruby-forum.com/.
On Sat, Jan 17, 2009 at 8:48 AM, Ed Keith <lists at ruby-forum.com> wrote:> Ashley Moran wrote: >> On 16 Jan 2009, at 17:44, Ed Keith wrote: > >> You don''t provide enough information for me to be sure, but what you >> describe sounds sufficiently high-level enough to make Cucumber[1] >> worth looking into. >> >> If you search the archives of this list I posted a very bad example of >> using Cucumber to spec binaries written in other languages (I used >> sort, I think). >> >> Ashley >> >> [1] http://wiki.github.com/aslakhellesoy/cucumber >> >> >> -- >> http://www.patchspace.co.uk/ >> http://aviewfromafar.net/ >> http://twitter.com/ashleymoran > > I looked at Cucumber, I''m not clear on what it does, but I do not think > it is what I need. > > Going into the details: I am testing a C++ library. There are many test > classes to test different aspects of the library. Some of the test cases > as supposed to fail to compile when the library is misused. At first I > used ruby to run the compilers and check the return value against 0 for > success. For the tested that were supposed to fail to compile, that was > all I needed. For the tests that were supposed to work I then ran the > generated executable and tested the return value. So far everything is > great. > > The library is supposed to be portable. So I am testing it with several > different compilers on several different operating systems. I do not > want to put platform specific information into the RSpec files, so I > wrote shell scripts of Unix and batch files on windows to set up the > environment for each compiler and then call RSpec with each > configuration environment. Now I have two problems: 1) Batch language is > real pain to do anything nontrivial in; 2) I have two sets of driver > scripts to maintain. > > I should be able to solve both problems by using a portable scripting > language for the driver scripts. My first thought was to use Python, > since I know it. This will work, but there are two things that make me > think it is suboptimal: 1) It will require that Python be installed on > all test systems; 2) It will require that the python interpreter invoke > the Ruby interpreter, this is very inefficient, not to mention ugly. > > I can easily solve the first problem by writing the driver scrips in > Ruby since Ruby must be installed to run RSpec, and I intended to learn > Ruby eventually anyway. My first, naive, attempt works, but I am running > the ruby interpreter inside the ruby interpreter recursively when I call > RSpec ("system spec spec1.rb"). There must be a better way to invoke > RSpec without recursively invoking the Ruby interpreter.You probably just need the spec command: http://rspec.info/documentation/tools/spec.html By default, it will load up any files in a directory (or its subs) named xxx_spec.rb. So in this case, if you change spec1.rb to xyz_spec.rb and stick it in an examples directory and type: spec examples There are numerous command line options (described in the doc ref''d above) to tweak the run and its output. If those don''t give you the flexibility you want, you can use the SpecTask in a rake file: http://rspec.info/documentation/tools/rake.html, which gives you a place to write any arbitrary Ruby code you need to set up your environment and then configure rspec to run in a variety of different ways. HTH, David> > -- > Posted via http://www.ruby-forum.com/. > _______________________________________________ > rspec-users mailing list > rspec-users at rubyforge.org > http://rubyforge.org/mailman/listinfo/rspec-users >
On Sat, Jan 17, 2009 at 6:48 AM, Ed Keith <lists at ruby-forum.com> wrote:> Ashley Moran wrote: >> On 16 Jan 2009, at 17:44, Ed Keith wrote: > >> You don''t provide enough information for me to be sure, but what you >> describe sounds sufficiently high-level enough to make Cucumber[1] >> worth looking into. >> >> If you search the archives of this list I posted a very bad example of >> using Cucumber to spec binaries written in other languages (I used >> sort, I think). >> >> Ashley >> >> [1] http://wiki.github.com/aslakhellesoy/cucumber >> >> >> -- >> http://www.patchspace.co.uk/ >> http://aviewfromafar.net/ >> http://twitter.com/ashleymoran > > I looked at Cucumber, I''m not clear on what it does, but I do not think > it is what I need. > > Going into the details: I am testing a C++ library. There are many test > classes to test different aspects of the library. Some of the test cases > as supposed to fail to compile when the library is misused. At first I > used ruby to run the compilers and check the return value against 0 for > success. For the tested that were supposed to fail to compile, that was > all I needed. For the tests that were supposed to work I then ran the > generated executable and tested the return value. So far everything is > great. > > The library is supposed to be portable. So I am testing it with several > different compilers on several different operating systems. I do not > want to put platform specific information into the RSpec files, so I > wrote shell scripts of Unix and batch files on windows to set up the > environment for each compiler and then call RSpec with each > configuration environment. Now I have two problems: 1) Batch language is > real pain to do anything nontrivial in; 2) I have two sets of driver > scripts to maintain. > > I should be able to solve both problems by using a portable scripting > language for the driver scripts. My first thought was to use PythonWhat about...Ruby? I think it would make a lot of sense to define a couple hashes/objects that represent each compiler. If you''re just using different strings, you can use a hash. gcc = {:name => ''gcc'', :command => ''gcc'', :flags => ''...''} pcc = {:name => ''pcc'', :command => ''pcc'', :flags => ''...''} watcom = {:name => ''watcom'', :command => ''wcm'', :flags => ''...''} [gcc, pcc, watcom].each do |compiler| describe "#{compiler[:name] compiler" do it "should build the binary" do Dir.chdir(project_dir) { exec "make COMPILER=#{compiler[:command]} FLAGS=''#{compiler[:flags]}" } build_binary.exit_code.should == 0 end end You probably wouldn''t put the compiler definitions right in there, but you could if you wanted to. But putting them in another file is easy and good. If you need more complex setup, create helper classes. class GccCompiler def setup # create some files... end def name; "gcc" end def command; "gcc" end end Same thing then, you create a new instance of each of these classes, iterate through, call their setup method, etc. Pat
Rake has been on my list of tools to learn for a while not. This might be the time. Thank you. -EdK -- Posted via http://www.ruby-forum.com/.
Pat Maddox wrote:> On Sat, Jan 17, 2009 at 6:48 AM, Ed Keith <lists at ruby-forum.com> wrote:> What about...Ruby? > > I think it would make a lot of sense to define a couple hashes/objects > that represent each compiler. If you''re just using different strings, > you can use a hash. > > gcc = {:name => ''gcc'', :command => ''gcc'', :flags => ''...''} > pcc = {:name => ''pcc'', :command => ''pcc'', :flags => ''...''} > watcom = {:name => ''watcom'', :command => ''wcm'', :flags => ''...''} > > [gcc, pcc, watcom].each do |compiler| > describe "#{compiler[:name] compiler" do > it "should build the binary" do > Dir.chdir(project_dir) { exec "make > COMPILER=#{compiler[:command]} FLAGS=''#{compiler[:flags]}" } > build_binary.exit_code.should == 0 > end > end > > You probably wouldn''t put the compiler definitions right in there, but > you could if you wanted to. But putting them in another file is easy > and good. > > If you need more complex setup, create helper classes. > > class GccCompiler > def setup > # create some files... > end > > def name; "gcc" end > def command; "gcc" end > end > > Same thing then, you create a new instance of each of these classes, > iterate through, call their setup method, etc. > > PatThis is close to what I was thinking of, but I am doing the compilation inside RSpec. My specifications look like this: it ''fail to compile if foo is assigned to int'' do x = system ENV[COMPILER] test_int_assign_fail.cpp x.should_not == 0 end it ''allow use of foo as bool'' do x = system ENV[COMPILER] test_use_as_bool.cpp x.should == 0 x = system test_use_as_bool x.should == 0 end My shell script or batch file sets the environment variables needed to compile. My problem is that I do not like the following line in Ruby : system spec spec1.rb it looks very inefficient, so I am looking for a better solution. -EdK -- Posted via http://www.ruby-forum.com/.
On 18 Jan 2009, at 13:29, Ed Keith wrote:> > My problem is that I do not like the following line in Ruby : > > system spec spec1.rb > > it looks very inefficient, so I am looking for a better solution.I think you might be able to just do this instead: load ''spec1.rb'' Does that look any better? Failing that, have a look at the source code for the ''spec'' command - it''s all Ruby - there will be something in there you can plagiarise, I''m sure. Matt Wynne http://blog.mattwynne.net http://www.songkick.com