Unit Testing Without Frameworks

[Sean O'Dell]

And to be honest i stopped unit tests, because the current libraries
GUI, networking, filesystems do not support them well enough. Hope
that this will improve in the future.

I felt the same way. I got back into unit testing in a way I don't think most
people would understand. I dropped frameworks altogether. I started just
running anything found in a "tests" sub-directory of whatever project I was
working on.

Actually, I do have a framework of a sort: a single ruby file I use to launch
tests that match a given name pattern. Here's the entire "framework":

#!/usr/bin/ruby

pattern = nil
pattern = Regexp.new(ARGV.shift) if (ARGV.length > 0)

Dir["tests/*"].each do | filename |
next if (filename =~ /^\./)

test = filename.clone
test.slice!(/^.+\//)
test.slice!(/\.rb$/)

next if (not test =~ /^test_/)
test.slice!(/^test_/)

next if (pattern and not test =~ Regexp.new("^#{pattern}$"))

print("---------- #{test}' ----------\n")
system(filename)
end

print("---------- DONE ----------\n")



Generally, in my tests, I just do whatever and let exceptions happen where
they happen, and every test usually ends with a statement like:

p a == expected_value

So my entire "report" consists of a series of true or falses. When a false
occurs, I just track it down and fix whatever caused the bug.

Perhaps it's just my need for simplicity that makes this work better for me
than a framework. Or perhaps current frameworks don't have the ability to
really anticipate what everyone needs or wants. Whatever the reason, I am
really into unit testing now.

Sean O'Dell

 

[Randy Lawrence]

And to be honest i stopped unit tests, because the current libraries
GUI, networking, filesystems do not support them well enough. Hope
that this will improve in the future.

I felt the same way. I got back into unit testing in a way I don't think most
people would understand. I dropped frameworks altogether. I started just
running anything found in a "tests" sub-directory of whatever project I was
working on.

Actually, I do have a framework of a sort: a single ruby file I use to launch
tests that match a given name pattern. Here's the entire "framework":

#!/usr/bin/ruby

pattern = nil
pattern = Regexp.new(ARGV.shift) if (ARGV.length > 0)

Dir["tests/*"].each do | filename |
next if (filename =~ /^\./)

test = filename.clone
test.slice!(/^.+\//)
test.slice!(/\.rb$/)

next if (not test =~ /^test_/)
test.slice!(/^test_/)

next if (pattern and not test =~ Regexp.new("^#{pattern}$"))

print("---------- #{test}' ----------\n")
system(filename)
end

print("---------- DONE ----------\n")



Generally, in my tests, I just do whatever and let exceptions happen where
they happen, and every test usually ends with a statement like:

p a == expected_value

So my entire "report" consists of a series of true or falses. When a false
occurs, I just track it down and fix whatever caused the bug.

Perhaps it's just my need for simplicity that makes this work better for me
than a framework. Or perhaps current frameworks don't have the ability to
really anticipate what everyone needs or wants. Whatever the reason, I am
really into unit testing now.

Sean O'Dell

I used to feel the same until I came across this page. It's the best 10
minutes I've ever invested on the topic of unit testing.

http://www.rubygarden.org/ruby?UsingTestUnit

I evaluated but did not use unit-testing frameworks in Java and C++
because they seemed like too much hassle.

The above page describes a scenario using Test::Unit that is so simple,
I bet it's even easier than many homegrown testing methods.