[rspec-users] do I use mocking (vs fixtures) for methods that produce results based on non-trivial SQL queries

[Scott Taylor]

On Sep 5, 2008, at 10:55 AM, Pat Maddox wrote:

>> time.  Just do the math: If one database test takes 0.2 sec (a  
>> realistic
>> figure), then 5 will take 1 sec, at 1000 over 3 minutes, and at  
>> 2000 over 6
>> minutes.  This is starting to get into "time for a coffee/cigarette/ 
>> juggling
>> what have you" breaks.  So - either you end up very hyped up on  
>> coffee not
>> doing much work, or you don't run your test suite very often, which  
>> leads to
>> legitimate bugs which can be solved. (At one point I had actually  
>> deployed
>> code into production which had a serious bug.  This all could have  
>> been
>> avoided because the test suite *was failing*, but I had gotten into  
>> the
>> habit of not running it because it was too expensive).
>
> There's a couple things you can do to help with this:
>
> * Split slow tests into another dir and run them separately from your
> fast suite.  Keep rspactor on your fast suite and run the slow tests
> before checkin
>
> * Use a CI server
>

Yes, most certainly.  But the db tests •still* aren't cheap, meaning  
you'll need to wait for the CI server to run them there is a failure,  
or wait before checking in.

Also - have you found a CI server that is working with git?

>
>> I've been working hard on solving this issue by building a SQL  
>> parser in
>> treetop, and hope anyone who is interested will join me (just let  
>> me know if
>> you are interested and I'll make the project publicly viewable on  
>> github).
>
> http://github.com/nkallen/arel/tree/master might also be interesting  
> to you.

Hmm..Well, that's interesting, although I think that project, like so  
many others, is *generating* SQL, not parsing it, correct?

I've made my sql parser public, and here is is if anyone wants to take  
a gander (although it most certainly is still a work in progress):

http://github.com/smtlaissezfaire/guillotine/tree/master

Scott