[rspec-users] How to spec a (Trollop-based) binary’s internal state?

[Shot (Piotr Szotkowski)]

I’m trying to spec a ‘binary’, and as previously discussed on this list,
I’m trying to do it ‘from outside’ – i.e., by calling it with Kernel#`
and observing the (side-)effects.

Unfortunately, this doesn’t really let me spec expectations about its
internals. Let’s assume I have a -d flag and I parse it with Trollop to
set Conf.debug:

opts = Trollop::options do
  opt :debug, 'Print debug info', :default => false
end
Conf.debug = opts[:debug]

To have a spec that actually expects
this, I’d write something like this:

it 'should set the debug option properly' do
  `binary -d`
  Conf.should_receive(:debug=).with true
end

This obviously doesn’t work, as the Kernel#` call is executed in
a context that is not visible from the current Ruby interpreter.
I assume that eval()-ing the binary (much like Rick Bradley does¹
for specing flog) would be the way to go, but then I don’t know how
to pass the -d flag to Trollop.

¹ http://rubyhoedown2008.confreaks.com/11-rick-bradley-flog-test-new.html

What would be the best practice in this case? Prepare ARGV for Trollop
so that it believes we are calling the binary with the -d flag and then
eval the binary, or run the binary with Kernel#`, pass it something
that should generate debug output and then check whether the output
was generated (rather than check whether the binary set Conf.debug)?

-- Shot
-- 
I've found that nurturing one's Zen nature is vital to dealing with
technology. Violence is pretty damn useful too.   -- Lionel Lauer, asr
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