Advise a way to test a wrapper on an external service

[Nicholas Wieland]

Hi, I'm trying to test an external service. I like my code, I really dislike the tests (probably because I'm not able to write them).

https://gist.github.com/ngw/9091503

Someone has some examples of "good style" or some advice for me? For example, I really dislike the fact I must stub the whole

class, it seems to me error prone and too verbose.

The pending spec doesn't even pass (that's why it's pending), and I have no idea why I need all that stuff: to me I should only stub

the query method to test it in another spec later, but I'm apparently not able to make it work.

TIA,

  ngw

[Aaron Kromer]

Just me 2cents:

If you own Google::APIClient then this seems to be a normal mockist approach. If however, you do not own that class, and instead get it from a gem or some other 3rd party dependency, maybe check out VCR. You can then record a live traffic flow then play it back to validate the tests.

Aside from that, you could possibly refactor the tests a bit. One general guide I use is that a test should only have a single expectation. Aside from that, other suggestions would largely be my personal preference. I would stick with whatever guidelines your dev group has set forth.

Aaron

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[Nicholas Wieland]

On Wednesday, February 19, 2014 4:41:22 PM UTC+1, Aaron Kromer wrote:

Just me 2cents:

If you own Google::APIClient then this seems to be a normal mockist approach. If however, you do not own that class, and instead get it from a gem or some other 3rd party dependency, maybe check out VCR. You can then record a live traffic flow then play it back to validate the tests.

Aside from that, you could possibly refactor the tests a bit. One general guide I use is that a test should only have a single expectation. Aside from that, other suggestions would largely be my personal preference. I would stick with whatever guidelines your dev group has set forth.

Hi, I don't own the Google::APIClient, it's an external gem.

How can you put a single expectations in every test if you have to mock the whole service every time? In my example I have to stub 2 calls only to instantiate the Google::APIClient, that's why I think it's a bit too verbose...

Don't worry about guidelines, I'm the whole dev group :p

Thanks,

  ngw

[Aaron Kromer]

I would use VCR for this. That records the network traffic and allows you to play it back. No need for the doubles then.

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