On writing test cases... (was Lisp comments)
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From: Jonathon McKitrick on 23 Jul 2006 20:51 Suppose you have (as I do) an application that generates multi-page pdf reports. How the heck do you write a test suite for this?
From: Pascal Costanza on 23 Jul 2006 20:56 Jonathon McKitrick wrote: > Suppose you have (as I do) an application that generates multi-page pdf > reports. How the heck do you write a test suite for this? Develop a version of your software that produces pdf files that you manually check for correctness. If you're done, take a snapshot of the generated pdf files in one folder as the expected results. The test suite then consists of generating pdf files and performing a binary comparison of the two folders. Thus, you will notice after changes to your code whether the contents of the pdf files are affected or not. Nobody promised you it's easy... ;) Pascal -- My website: http://p-cos.net Closer to MOP & ContextL: http://common-lisp.net/project/closer/
From: Nathan Baum on 23 Jul 2006 21:52 Pascal Costanza wrote: > Jonathon McKitrick wrote: > > Suppose you have (as I do) an application that generates multi-page pdf > > reports. How the heck do you write a test suite for this? > > Develop a version of your software that produces pdf files that you > manually check for correctness. If you're done, take a snapshot of the > generated pdf files in one folder as the expected results. The test > suite then consists of generating pdf files and performing a binary > comparison of the two folders. Thus, you will notice after changes to > your code whether the contents of the pdf files are affected or not. Additionally, in as much as test suites are an alternative to comments, they only document what they test. Writing a test suite for an entire program is basically writing a single comment for an entire program: not terribly useful. Instead, one would write tests for the components of the report generator. Without knowing what your reports are like, it's hard to say what those components are. And of course, certain creative elements can't be tested automatically. You can test the factual elements of your generated reports, but you can't automatically test if it looks nice. > > Nobody promised you it's easy... ;) > > > Pascal > > -- > My website: http://p-cos.net > Closer to MOP & ContextL: > http://common-lisp.net/project/closer/
From: Paul F. Dietz on 23 Jul 2006 22:07 Jonathon McKitrick wrote: > Suppose you have (as I do) an application that generates multi-page pdf > reports. How the heck do you write a test suite for this? Among other things, you should write unit tests for subsections of the code. Try to achieve 100% branch coverage with these tests. I use Waters' RT and COVER packages when I do this, although COVER doesn't deal with CLOS all that well. Paul
From: Nathan Baum on 23 Jul 2006 22:50
Paul F. Dietz wrote: > Jonathon McKitrick wrote: > > > Suppose you have (as I do) an application that generates multi-page pdf > > reports. How the heck do you write a test suite for this? > > Among other things, you should write unit tests for subsections of > the code. Try to achieve 100% branch coverage with these tests. > I use Waters' RT and COVER packages when I do this, although COVER > doesn't deal with CLOS all that well. My google-fu isn't working for me. Where can I find out about these packages? > > Paul |