I’ve just kicked off a new MVC Framework application today. I’ve been considering moving to more behaviour based testing for a while now and I’ve been intrigued by Aaron Jensen’s descriptions of his MSpec (Machine Specifications) framework. So this afternoon I downloaded the build from here and got coding (just click ‘login as guest’ at the bottom).
It’s very nice. Here’s some tests for my container setup:
using System.Web.Mvc; using Castle.Windsor; using Machine.Specifications; using Spark.Web.Mvc; using Mike.Portslade.Web.IoC; namespace Mike.Portslade.Web.Tests.IoC.ContainerManagerSpecs { public class when_container_is_created { Because of = () => container = ContainerManager.CreateContainer(); It should_register_HomeController = () => container.Kernel.HasComponent("homecontroller"); It should_register_SparkViewFactory = () => container.Kernel.HasComponent(typeof (SparkViewFactory)); It should_register_an_IControllerFactory = () => container.Kernel.HasComponent(typeof (IControllerFactory)); private static IWindsorContainer container; } }
I love the readability of the test code. Sure you have to learn to love the ‘=()=>’, but come on people, lambda syntax is hardly new any more.
When I run this using TestDriven.NET, my test runner of choice for many years now, I get this output:
when container is created » should register HomeController » should register SparkViewFactory » should register an IControllerFactory
The only thing I don’t like is that the ‘It’ has gone missing which is a shame, otherwise this is just what I want from behaviour based testing framework; very low friction and easy to read output.
Well done Aaron, I’m very impressed.
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5 comments:
it does look ... clever. I'm not sure that gives me a warm feeling though :)
Thanks! The reason "It" is gone, is because the "It" is actually a placeholder for the Subject, which you have not placed on your tests. If you add a Subject attribute to the class you'll see them in the output and it will make more sense: ContainerManager, when container is created > should register...
I started down the BDD testing path with Cucumber in Rails, so when switching back to .NET I was after something similar. My highest priority was something with the ability to allow step mapping, meaning I can write normal sentences in English which are mapped to the methods being run.
NBehave does this nicely, as documented here.
I also recently started with BDD, and reviewed a few frameworks. Aubergine looks promising, but my current choice is SpecFlow. (http://www.specflow.org)
It is fairly mature, and well integrated with Visual Studio.
It definitely gave me that "warm feeling".
Took me less than an hour to learn the ropes - although watching the screencast from the website helped a lot.
My main use for it is WPF and Silverlight applications written in the MVVM style.
In short - I'm very impressed, and a definite convert!
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