Spocklight: Reuse Variables in Data Providers
This trick for writing parameterized specifications in Spock involves specifying different values from your data providers for efficient testing.
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Join For FreeWriting a parameterized specification in Spock is easy. We need to add the where:
block and use data providers to specify different values for each set of values from the data providers our specifications are run, so we can test for example very effectively with multiple input arguments for a method and the expected outcome.
A data provider can be anything that implements the Iterable
interface. Spock also adds support for a data table. In the data table, we define columns for each variable and in the rows values for each variable. Since Spock 1.1, we can reuse the value of the variables inside the data provider or data table. The value of the variable can only be reused in variables that are defined after the variable we want to reuse is defined.
In the following example, we have two feature methods: one uses a data provider and one a data table. The variable sentence
is defined after the variable search
, so we can use the search
variable value in the definition of the sentence
variable.
package mrhaki
import spock.lang.Specification
import spock.lang.Unroll
class CountOccurrencesSpec extends Specification {
@Unroll('#sentence should have #count occurrences of #search (using data table)')
void 'count occurrences of text using data table'() {
expect:
sentence.count(search) == count
where:
search | sentence || count
'ABC' | "A simple $search" || 1
'Spock' | "Don't confuse $search framework, with the other $search" || 2
}
@Unroll('#sentence should have #count occurrences of #search (using data provider)')
void 'count occurrences of text using data provider'() {
expect:
sentence.count(search) == count
where:
search << ['ABC', 'Spock']
sentence << ["A simple $search", "Don't confuse $search framework, with the other $search"]
count << [1, 2]
}
}
When we run the specification, the feature methods will pass, and in the @Unroll
descriptions, we see that the sentence
variable uses the value of search
:
Written with Spock 1.1-groovy-2.4.
Published at DZone with permission of Hubert Klein Ikkink, DZone MVB. See the original article here.
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