I'm trying to include the unit tests for a module in the same source file as the module itself, following the Perl modulino model.
#! /usr/bin/env ruby
require 'test/unit'
module Modulino
def modulino_function
return 0
end
end
class ModulinoTest < Test::Unit::TestCase
include Modulino
def test_modulino_function
assert_equal(0, modulino_function)
end
end
Now, I can run the unit-tests executing this source file.
But, they are also run when I require/load them from another script. How can this be avoided ?
Is there a more idiomatic way to achieve this with Ruby, unless this practice is discouraged ?
Personally I've never heard of anyone trying to do this in Ruby. It's definitely not a standard practice. That said you may be able to leverage this trick:
if __FILE__ == $0
# Do something.. run tests, call a method, etc. We're direct.
end
The code in the if
block will only execute if the file is executed directly, not if it's required by another library or application.
More ruby tricks here: http://www.rubyinside.com/21-ruby-tricks-902.html
It's actually not that uncommon in Ruby though it's certainly not the common practice in Rails.
One of the issues you may be running into is the same as this post which is that modules really should be included in classes in order to test them. It's certainly possible to test a module by including it in your test case but you're testing whether the module works when mixed into Test::Unit::TestCase, not that it'll work when you mix it into something more useful.
So unit tests should probably live on the class file or if you just want generally available methods use a class function instead of a module.
You can include unit tests inside the module source code itself using minitest.
Try this example:
class Foo < String
end
if $0 == __FILE__
require 'minitest/autorun'
require 'minitest/pride'
class FooTest < MiniTest::Unit::TestCase
def test_foo_instantiation
foo = Foo.new()
assert_instance_of Foo, foo
end
def test_foo_parent_class
foo = Foo.new()
assert_kind_of String, foo
end
end
end
Here I created a class called Foo, which inherits from the class String.
Then I created two unit tests. In the first test, I check that I can instantiate
an object of class Foo. In the second test, I check that the instantiated object of class Foo is a kind of String.
If this code is written in a file called foo.rb, I can simply run the tests using this command:
ruby foo.rb
Minitest is fast to execute. The "pride" module allows you to output the test result in color fonts, which is nice on the eye.
Just found one way to prevent the unit test from being executed when the module is required from a script. There is a flag in unit.rb
in .../lib/ruby/1.8/test/
to set to true.
Combined with samg trick (thanks again), we can write:
if (__FILE__ != $0)
Test::Unit.run = true ### do not run the unit tests
end