Creating a Unit test which tests partial routines

Question

Question

Alex Kogan · Jan 11, 2019

I was wondering if anyone has ever created a unit test which would run testing a mac routine (old fashion), via 1. Setup all the variables.

2. Run a unit test on routine from line x to line x +100…

I know it sounds a bit odd, since line numbers do change, and therefore - these unit tests may not be as stable.

Just curious if anyone ever wrote something like this. Obviously in some older code there may be a routines out there which have 1000’s of lines of code, and testing the entire thing is extremely difficult, but testing a small logically bound chunks - would be useful.

Not sure if anyone came across this and how was it implemented.

Thank you,

Alex

Discussion (6)2

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Ben Spead · Jan 11, 2019

Alex - I think it isn't a smart idea to call into a specific line number of a routine since the contents will change. Instead you should call the line labels/functions called within the routine by outside of the routine and pass all appropriate variables, etc that way.

Trying to call a specific line number will certainly lead to faster than desired 'bit rot' in your unit test library.

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Ben Spead · Jan 12, 2019

Eduard - I completely agree!

The nice (or annoying, depending on your perspective) thing about moving to the discipline of unit testing is that it forces you to write your code in a more modular (and therefore more testable) manner, and refactoring to meet these goals is a great byproduct of a testing focus :)

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score 1 · Answer 1 · 2019-01-12T00:27:13-05:00

And if you don't have labels, adding them wouldn't break existing code.

For example you have this routine:

TEST
    write 1
    write 2
    write 3
    quit

It, when called would output

>do ^TEST
123

If you then add a label somewhere:

TEST
    write 1

MYLABEL
    write 2
    write 3
    quit

The routine would wok the same on previous calls:

>do ^TEST
123

But you'll also be able to call only the label:

>do MYLABEL^TEST
23

score 0 · Answer 2 · 2019-01-12T00:50:40-05:00

Thank you Ben. I realize there maybe an issue there. I was thinking someone came up with a workaround (sort of speaking). In either cases, I think labels would work well to test partial huge routines, but it will only alter the starting point, not end.

score 0 · Answer 3 · 2019-01-12T00:46:32-05:00

Thank you, I think that will work. Adding a label does not seem to interfere with routine flow, so at least you can run a unit test starting from anywhere, but you still will have to run the routine to the end.

Either way, this is definitely an option if you wish to run a unit test from some point other the starting label.

Thank you,

Alex

score 3 · Answer 4 · 2019-01-12T10:31:03-05:00

Eduard Lebedyuk · Jan 12, 2019

You could (and probably should) separate these parts of routines as separate methods or at least subroutines.

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