Testing file system manipulations

Ruby
1

I am currently writing a class which processes a log file, inserts some
data into the database, and then rotates the log file. I am doing
test-driven development and I was curious as to the best practices for
testing classes which manipulate the file system.

Rails tests have a transactional feature for testing database
manipulation such that changes made to the DB are reset after each test.
I was wondering if there was anything like this for the file system. It
would be great if the test could automatically reverse any file system
changes made during a test; I could imagine doing this via proxying
access to the File, FileUtils, and Dir classes. Has anything like this
been done? Or is there a better approach altogether?

For the record, I’m using Shoulda.

2

On Thu, Jan 29, 2009 at 10:37 PM, Chris Vincent
[email protected]wrote:

access to the File, FileUtils, and Dir classes. Has anything like this
been done? Or is there a better approach altogether?

For the record, I’m using Shoulda.

Posted via http://www.ruby-forum.com/.

You should use mock objects in place of file operations.
If you’re using mocha, you can do things like

File.expects(:delete).with(file_name)
File.delete(file_name)

–
Andrew T.
http://ramblingsonrails.com
http://www.linkedin.com/in/andrewtimberlake

“I have never let my schooling interfere with my education” - Mark Twain

3

You can find Mocha here: http://mocha.rubyforge.org/