[rspec-users] testing behaviour or testing code?

[Jay Levitt]

Wincent Colaiuta wrote:
> El 7/9/2007, a las 5:36, Jay Levitt escribió:
> 
> Very true that you shouldn't be testing ActiveRecord's validation  
> (Rails' own unit tests are there for that).
> 
> But if you want to do truly *driven* BDD then you will have to test  
> something; in other words, *before* you go ahead and add this line to  
> your model:
> 
>    validates_presence_of :foo
> 
> You need to write a failing spec for it first. Otherwise, why would  
> you write it? Doing BDD in its purest form you shouldn't be writing  
> *any* line of code without your specs driving it. This means the  
> familiar "write failing spec, write code, confirm working spec" cycle.
> 
> So the question is, what is the best kind of spec to write to *drive*  
> the writing of your "validates_presence_of" lines? For some  
> validations it's quite easy. For others it is less straightforward.  
> There are probably multiple valid (or valid-ish) answers, but it's  
> sometimes difficult to know which one is best.

Well put!  To me, if the spec I write is:

   Model.expects(:validates_presence_of).with(:digits)

then I haven't written a spec at all - I've written the code I plan to 
write, and spelled it differently!  The English version of that spec is:

Model
   - should call validates_presence_of with parameter :digits

That's just specifying what a line of my code should *say*, not how 
Model should *behave*.

I really like Wincent's approach - test that valid input yields a valid 
response and that invalid input yields an invalid response.

Jay