Namespace: joker.test

v1.0

Contents

Summary

A unit testing framework.

ASSERTIONS

The core of the library is the "is" macro, which lets you make
assertions of any arbitrary expression:

(is (= 4 (+ 2 2)))
(is (instance? Integer 256))
(is (.startsWith "abcde" "ab"))

You can type an "is" expression directly at the REPL, which will
print a message if it fails.

user> (is (= 5 (+ 2 2)))

FAIL in (:1)
expected: (= 5 (+ 2 2))
actual: (not (= 5 4))
false

The "expected:" line shows you the original expression, and the
"actual:" shows you what actually happened. In this case, it
shows that (+ 2 2) returned 4, which is not = to 5. Finally, the
"false" on the last line is the value returned from the
expression. The "is" macro always returns the result of the
inner expression.

There are two special assertions for testing exceptions. The
"(is (thrown? c ...))" form tests if an exception of class c is
thrown:

(is (thrown? ArithmeticException (/ 1 0)))

"(is (thrown-with-msg? c re ...))" does the same thing and also
tests that the message on the exception matches the regular
expression re:

(is (thrown-with-msg? ArithmeticException #"Divide by zero"
(/ 1 0)))

DOCUMENTING TESTS

"is" takes an optional second argument, a string describing the
assertion. This message will be included in the error report.

(is (= 5 (+ 2 2)) "Crazy arithmetic")

In addition, you can document groups of assertions with the
"testing" macro, which takes a string followed by any number of
assertions. The string will be included in failure reports.
Calls to "testing" may be nested, and all of the strings will be
joined together with spaces in the final report, in a style
similar to RSpec <http://rspec.info/>

(testing "Arithmetic"
(testing "with positive integers"
(is (= 4 (+ 2 2)))
(is (= 7 (+ 3 4))))
(testing "with negative integers"
(is (= -4 (+ -2 -2)))
(is (= -1 (+ 3 -4)))))

Note that, unlike RSpec, the "testing" macro may only be used
INSIDE a "deftest" or "with-test" form (see below).


DEFINING TESTS

There are two ways to define tests. The "with-test" macro takes
a defn or def form as its first argument, followed by any number
of assertions. The tests will be stored as metadata on the
definition.

(with-test
(defn my-function [x y]
(+ x y))
(is (= 4 (my-function 2 2)))
(is (= 7 (my-function 3 4))))

As of Clojure SVN rev. 1221, this does not work with defmacro.
See http://code.google.com/p/clojure/issues/detail?id=51

The other way lets you define tests separately from the rest of
your code, even in a different namespace:

(deftest addition
(is (= 4 (+ 2 2)))
(is (= 7 (+ 3 4))))

(deftest subtraction
(is (= 1 (- 4 3)))
(is (= 3 (- 7 4))))

This creates functions named "addition" and "subtraction", which
can be called like any other function. Therefore, tests can be
grouped and composed, in a style similar to the test framework in
Peter Seibel's "Practical Common Lisp"
<http://www.gigamonkeys.com/book/practical-building-a-unit-test-framework.html>

(deftest arithmetic
(addition)
(subtraction))

The names of the nested tests will be joined in a list, like
"(arithmetic addition)", in failure reports. You can use nested
tests to set up a context shared by several tests.


RUNNING TESTS

Run tests with the function "(run-tests namespaces...)":

(run-tests 'your.namespace 'some.other.namespace)

If you don't specify any namespaces, the current namespace is
used. To run all tests in all namespaces, use "(run-all-tests)".

By default, these functions will search for all tests defined in
a namespace and run them in an undefined order. However, if you
are composing tests, as in the "arithmetic" example above, you
probably do not want the "addition" and "subtraction" tests run
separately. In that case, you must define a special function
named "test-ns-hook" that runs your tests in the correct order:

(defn test-ns-hook []
(arithmetic))

Note: test-ns-hook prevents execution of fixtures (see below).


OMITTING TESTS FROM PRODUCTION CODE

You can bind the variable "*load-tests*" to false when loading or
compiling code in production. This will prevent any tests from
being created by "with-test" or "deftest".


FIXTURES

Fixtures allow you to run code before and after tests, to set up
the context in which tests should be run.

A fixture is just a function that calls another function passed as
an argument. It looks like this:

(defn my-fixture [f]
Perform setup, establish bindings, whatever.
(f) Then call the function we were passed.
Tear-down / clean-up code here.
)

Fixtures are attached to namespaces in one of two ways. "each"
fixtures are run repeatedly, once for each test function created
with "deftest" or "with-test". "each" fixtures are useful for
establishing a consistent before/after state for each test, like
clearing out database tables.

"each" fixtures can be attached to the current namespace like this:
(use-fixtures :each fixture1 fixture2 ...)
The fixture1, fixture2 are just functions like the example above.
They can also be anonymous functions, like this:
(use-fixtures :each (fn [f] setup... (f) cleanup...))

The other kind of fixture, a "once" fixture, is only run once,
around ALL the tests in the namespace. "once" fixtures are useful
for tasks that only need to be performed once, like establishing
database connections, or for time-consuming tasks.

Attach "once" fixtures to the current namespace like this:
(use-fixtures :once fixture1 fixture2 ...)

Note: Fixtures and test-ns-hook are mutually incompatible. If you
are using test-ns-hook, fixture functions will *never* be run.


SAVING TEST OUTPUT TO A FILE

All the test reporting functions write to the var *test-out*. By
default, this is the same as *out*, but you can rebind it to any
PrintWriter. For example, it could be a file opened with
clojure.java.io/writer.


EXTENDING TEST-IS (ADVANCED)

You can extend the behavior of the "is" macro by defining new
methods for the "assert-expr" multimethod. These methods are
called during expansion of the "is" macro, so they should return
quoted forms to be evaluated.

You can plug in your own test-reporting framework by rebinding
the "report" function: (report event)

The 'event' argument is a map. It will always have a :type key,
whose value will be a keyword signaling the type of event being
reported. Standard events with :type value of :pass, :fail, and
:error are called when an assertion passes, fails, and throws an
exception, respectively. In that case, the event will also have
the following keys:

:expected The form that was expected to be true
:actual A form representing what actually occurred
:message The string message given as an argument to 'is'

The "testing" strings will be a list in "*testing-contexts*", and
the vars being tested will be a list in "*testing-vars*".

Your "report" function should wrap any printing calls in the
"with-test-out" macro, which rebinds *out* to the current value
of *test-out*.

For additional event types, see the examples in the code.

Index

Constants

Constants are variables with :const true in their metadata. Joker currently does not recognize them as special; as such, it allows redefining them or their values.

Variables

Functions, Macros, and Special Forms