Stubbing times: #from_now et al

I had a look around for how to stub Time.now , #from_now , etc, and
came across this, which was useful:
http://devblog.michaelgalero.com/2007/11/23/actioncontroller-rspec-stub-timenow/

Unfortunately, my situation is slightly different, and causes that
solution to not be applicable. This is what I’m trying to spec:

def remember_me_for(time)
remember_me_until time.from_now.utc
end

I thought this would work:

it ‘should remember a user for a period of time’ do
user = create_user
one_week = 1.week
from_now = 1.week.from_now
from_now_utc = 1.week.from_now.utc

one_week.stub!(:from_now).and_return from_now
from_now.stub!(:utc).and_return from_now_utc

user.should_receive(:remember_me_until).with from_now_utc

user.remember_me_for one_week
end

But that fails, referencing the stub on “one_week”:

TypeError in ‘User should remember a user for a period of time’
no virtual class for Fixnum

Any suggestions for how to solve this? Thanks!
Nick

On Wed, Nov 5, 2008 at 12:51 PM, Nick H. [email protected]
wrote:

Any suggestions for how to solve this? Thanks!
Looks like you can’t stub anything on a Fixnum because of the way
RSpec’s mocking works.

require ‘spec/mocks’
=> true
1.stub!(:foo)
TypeError: no virtual class for Fixnum

Same with mocha, apparently.

require ‘mocha’
=> true
1.stubs(:foo)
TypeError: no virtual class for Fixnum

Same with rr:

require ‘rr’
=> true
mock(1).foo
TypeError: no virtual class for Fixnum

And lastly (but not leastly), flexmock:

require ‘flexmock’
include FlexMock::MockContainer
=> Object
flexmock(1).foo
TypeError: no virtual class for Fixnum

The problem is there is no Singleton Class for 1, probably an
efficiency in Ruby since 1 is, itself, a Singleton.

All of these frameworks try to manipulate methods on the object’s
singleton class. So no mocking/stubbing on Fixnums. Apparently.

Not much help - sorry.

David

On 2008-11-05, at 14:42, David C. wrote:

The problem is there is no Singleton Class for 1, probably an
efficiency in Ruby since 1 is, itself, a Singleton.

All of these frameworks try to manipulate methods on the object’s
singleton class. So no mocking/stubbing on Fixnums. Apparently.

Not much help - sorry.

That was a good explanation. Thanks, mate. At least now I know not to
chase this path any further!

Nick H. wrote:

end
from_now.stub!(:utc).and_return from_now_utc

Any suggestions for how to solve this? Thanks!
Nick


rspec-users mailing list
[email protected]
http://rubyforge.org/mailman/listinfo/rspec-users

Hey Nick,
It is generally a bad idea to stub/mock a method on the object you are
verifying the behaviour of. I would recommend a state-based approach of
testing this method as opposed to the interaction-based one you are
pursuing. The reason being is that you want to verify the behaviour of
the object as a whole. How the object uses it’s internal methods and
state is none of the code example’s business. Without knowing the other
methods on User I don’t know the best way to verify the behavior… What
other methods that deal with the remember functionality are part of the
public API? Assuming it is an AR model and you have a
‘remember_me_until’ column you could do something like:

it ‘should remember a user for a period of time’ do
user = create_user

user.remember_me_for(1.week)

user.remember_me_until.should == 1.week.from_now.utc
end

Again, using the #remember_me_until method is testing the internal state
of the object but without knowing your other methods I don’t what the
better options (if any) are.

HTH,
Ben

On 2008-11-05, at 15:02, Ben M. wrote:

an AR model and you have a ‘remember_me_until’ column you could do
state of the object but without knowing your other methods I don’t
what the better options (if any) are.

HTH,
Ben

Hi Ben. #remember_me is used to keep a user logged in to the website
if they ticked the “Remember me?” checkbox in the login form. It’s
only called from one location in the app:

case
when valid_remember_cookie? then @current_user.refresh_token #
keeping same expiry date
when new_cookie_flag then @current_user.remember_me
else @current_user.forget_me
end

So as you suggested, my spec example should probably just be checking
to see that the User instance’s “remember_me_until” attribute is set
to an appropriate value.

Thanks!
Nick

On Wed, Nov 5, 2008 at 11:42 AM, David C.
[email protected]wrote:

Looks like you can’t stub anything on a Fixnum because of the way
RSpec’s mocking works.

require ‘spec/mocks’
=> true
1.stub!(:foo)
TypeError: no virtual class for Fixnum

What I can’t figure out is this:

1.day
=> 1 day

1.day.class
=> Fixnum

Is 1.day an ActiveSupport::Duration or a Fixnum?

///ark

On Wed, Nov 5, 2008 at 12:26 PM, Nick H. [email protected]
wrote:

I’ve no idea why 1.day.class returns Fixnum though…

Yeah, I’d looked at the code. Why #class returns Fixnum was my question,
actually. Something to do with coercion, maybe.

The other thing is that if it were simply a Duration, I’d expect you to
be
able to stub it.

///ark

On 2008-11-05, at 15:10, Mark W. wrote:

///ark
It’s an ActiveSupport::Duration :

48 def days
49 ActiveSupport::Duration.new(self * 24.hours, [[:days,
self]])
50 end
51 alias :day :days

I’ve no idea why 1.day.class returns Fixnum though…