[rspec-users] Name collision - how would you handle this?

[Ashley Moran]

On 8 Aug 2010, at 12:05, Matt Wynne wrote:

>> And you override it using let(:foo), which would be a perfectly reasonable way to handle it. In fact, it would be the way I would handle in instinctively, because now I don't have to wrote my own memoization handling into the method.
> 
> I instinctively agree with ashley, but I see your point too David.
> 
> Would it be awful to make let even more magic, and do something with #caller to forward the message to MiniTest if it didn't come from the code in your example block? Maybe the method defined by let could even have a __hidden name, and then RSpec can forward the message to that __hidden method if the message was sent from within the example block.
> 
> Sounds pretty horrible, doesn't it?


Hmmm, sounds like it could create a pretty nasty coupling to MiniTest.  Maybe there's a general solution like:

  define_example_method do # or maybe "define_helper" ?
    # some stuff that only gets called from examples
  end

I'm not sure I'd be keen on let embedding this magic, but maybe as a general concept it makes more sense, as a way of isolating helper code in example groups.


There's another side to the debate, which is that in shared example groups, I prefer the precondition-check style to the templatemethod-fail style, ie rather than:

  def foo
    raise "you need to define a foo method ..."
  end

I'd prefer to write:

  unless respond_to?(:foo)
    raise "you need to define a foo method ..."
  end

But that would involve evaluating the configuration block first >:)

Ash

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