On Tue, Apr 27, 2010 at 2:51 PM, Patrick J. Collins <patr...@collinatorstudios.com> wrote: > Hi, > >> What if they didn't? Is there a different way you could design this so >> that the interesting bits (The small methods) didn't depend so much on >> the other bits around them? >> > > Well this is for importing vCards... > http://gist.github.com/381384 > > So for example, I would like to just make a spec that does: > > ... > > before(:all) do > card_data = File.read(RAILS_ROOT + > "/spec/fixtures/vcard/kirk_no_photo.vcf") > �...@vcard = Vcard.create!(:data => card_data) > Contact.all.map(&:destroy) > end > > describe "finding a contact" do > > it "should find the contact when an email for the contact exists" do > email = Email.create!(:address => "k...@enterprise.com") > contact = Contact.create!(:first_name => 'James', :last_name => 'Kirk') > contact.emails << email > > �...@vcard.find_contact.should == contact > end > end > > ... > > > But, like I said, I am not quite sure how to structure it so that my @card > ivar gets set.. >
Based on the above I think the Vcard is a good opportunity for a mock. That would most likely imply that you create the Vcard somewhere else and pass it into this method. Also, you should directly test the implementation of the Vcard outside of this spec (i.e. in it's own spec.) >> Make them public. Move them to their own classes that encapsulate the >> stuff they need to know about (e.g. the "setup".) When you test the >> higher level methods you can mock this stuff. When you test the small >> methods you should call them directly. > > So is it bad practice then to use private methods? I have a habit of doing > that-- but from what you're saying there is no way to test those things > individually.... > No, it's not bad practice to use private methods. However, private methods should mostly be helpers that encapsulate some small calculation. If the method is interesting enough to be tested on its own then it probably should be part of the public API. If the method is not interesting enough to be tested on its own then it should be private and tested through the public method that calls it. As with anything, YMMV. _______________________________________________ rspec-users mailing list rspec-users@rubyforge.org http://rubyforge.org/mailman/listinfo/rspec-users
