[rspec-users] How do you use pending in RSpec?
Hi All,
I've been working on BDD support in a test framework for Scala
imaginatively called ScalaTest, and I want to add support for the
notion of pending examples. I see three different "forms" of pending
in RSpec, and I'm curious to hear which ones RSpec users find most
useful. The three forms are:
# 1. With no block you get a PENDING (Not Yet Implemented) in the report
it "should say foo"
# 2. Passing a string, but no block, to pending. You get the PENDING
(get the vocal chords working) in the report.
it "should say foo" do
pending("get the vocal chords working")
subject.should say("foo")
end
# 3. Pass a string and a block to pending. If the pending code raises
an exception, then you get PENDING (get the vocal chords working)k
# but if not, I believe the whole tests fails to let you know you need
to drop the pending stuff now that it works (I may be wrong).
it "should say foo" do
pending("get the vocal chords working") do
subject.should say("foo")
end
end
Which of these forms do you find the most useful in practice, and are
there any that you think would be better left out?
Thanks.
Bill
Bill Venners
Artima, Inc.
http://www.artima.com
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Re: [rspec-users] How do you use pending in RSpec?
Hi Aslak and Scott,
Thanks for your replies. I have a couple quick follow up questions.
On Thu, Mar 12, 2009 at 3:05 PM, aslak hellesoy
wrote:
>
>
> On Thu, Mar 12, 2009 at 10:50 PM, Bill Venners wrote:
>>
>> Hi All,
>>
>> I've been working on BDD support in a test framework for Scala
>> imaginatively called ScalaTest, and I want to add support for the
>
> Very cool!
>
>> notion of pending examples. I see three different "forms" of pending
>> in RSpec, and I'm curious to hear which ones RSpec users find most
>> useful. The three forms are:
>>
>> # 1. With no block you get a PENDING (Not Yet Implemented) in the report
>> it "should say foo"
>
> I rarely use this, as I don't write a lot of specs up front.
>
OK. One use case I see for pending is writing the spec text before the
example code. No one yet has said they actually do this in practice.
Anyone care to admit this feature is important to them?
>>
>> # 2. Passing a string, but no block, to pending. You get the PENDING
>> (get the vocal chords working) in the report.
>> it "should say foo" do
>> pending("get the vocal chords working")
>> subject.should say("foo")
>> end
>
> I find myself using #2 the most. I use it when I want to reduce noise diring
> a refactoring that breaks a lot.
>
You know there's already an "ignore" feature in ScalaTest's Spec,
which I think is probably like xit in RSpec. You just select "it" and
change it to "ignore". That means temporarily ignore this test, which
most likely broke because I'm doing refactoring. What's missing is
that there's no way with ignore to specify a string like you can with
pending #2. What do you usually put in that string?
>>
>> # 3. Pass a string and a block to pending. If the pending code raises
>> an exception, then you get PENDING (get the vocal chords working)k
>> # but if not, I believe the whole tests fails to let you know you need
>> to drop the pending stuff now that it works (I may be wrong).
>> it "should say foo" do
>> pending("get the vocal chords working") do
>>subject.should say("foo")
>> end
>> end
>
> I sometimes use this when I'm not sure why the example is failing, but don't
> want to look into it right now.
>
I guess I'm curious:
1) How important is it to you to be able to just "strike out" the
lines of code within an example that are failing (as you can with
RSpec's #3 pending form), versus just "striking out" the entire
example as you can with ignore in ScalaTest.
2) How important is it to you to be able to add a string message to
your stricken code, as you can with either #2 or #3 in RSpec? How does
that string help you?
Thanks.
Bill
Bill Venners
Artima, Inc.
http://www.artima.com/
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Re: [rspec-users] How do you use pending in RSpec?
Hi Matt and others,
Thanks for your replies. I think I've settled on just using two of
RSpec's pending forms in ScalaTest. If you want to write out a few
spec texts before writing the examples, you'd put pending in parens
where you'd normally put the block of example code:
it("should do something") (pending)
it("should do something else") (pending)
If something breaks during refactoring, you can either ignore the
whole thing by changing it to ignore like this (which already is
supported):
ignore("should do something") {
// ...
}
Or by puttting a pending with a string inside the example block of code:
it("should do something") {
// ...
pending("this won't start working again until I...")
// ...
}
But I'll leave out the pending form that takes a block.
I appreciate the feedback.
Thanks.
Bill
On Fri, Mar 13, 2009 at 8:07 AM, Matt Wynne wrote:
>
> On 12 Mar 2009, at 23:23, Bill Venners wrote:
>
>> I guess I'm curious:
>>
>> 1) How important is it to you to be able to just "strike out" the
>> lines of code within an example that are failing (as you can with
>> RSpec's #3 pending form), versus just "striking out" the entire
>> example as you can with ignore in ScalaTest.
>
> I don't personally ever strike out parts of an example - all or nothing
>
>> 2) How important is it to you to be able to add a string message to
>> your stricken code, as you can with either #2 or #3 in RSpec? How does
>> that string help you?
>
> Very important - it's like a TODO.
>
> Matt Wynne
> http://blog.mattwynne.net
> http://www.songkick.com
>
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