Unit Testing Macros

[Sean]

Hey everyone,
I'm writing a macro library for myself, and I'm thinking about
publishing it. Before I do so, I'd like to write & run some unit
tests for it. I was hoping the crowd could chime in on how they test
macros. Any links & examples would be great. Thanks!

[Cosmin Stejerean]

Haven't gotten around to writing unit tests for macros, but if I did I think I would use macroexpand-1 and assert that it expanded into the form I was expecting. For example let's say I wanted to write a test for the 'defn' macro

If it worked correctly then the following expression should be true

(= (macroexpand-1 '(defn foo [x y] (+ x y))) 

     '(def foo (clojure.core/fn ([x y] (+ x y)))))

and it is, because (defn foo [x y] (+ x y)) does in fact expand out to (def foo (clojure.core/fn ([x y] (+ x y))))

--
Cosmin Stejerean
http://offbytwo.com

[Stuart Sierra]

Hi Sean,

You can generally test a macro like any other function -- call it,
then check that the result is what you want. The exact form a macro
expands to is usually an implementation detail, not a behavior.

-Stuart Sierra

[Sean]

Thanks to everyone who replied. After looking at the examples & a
night's sleep, this makes sense.

On Mar 18, 12:38 pm, Stuart Sierra <the.stuart.sie...@gmail.com>
wrote: