Testing private methods

I have a class with a lot of private utility methods that makes the code
a lot cleaner. However I want to test them with unit tests. How can I do
this if they are private?

On 5/15/06, Peter H. [email protected] wrote:

I have a class with a lot of private utility methods that makes the code
a lot cleaner. However I want to test them with unit tests. How can I do
this if they are private?

In your test code do:

class ClassUnderTest
public :private_method1, :private_method2 # …
end

as exemplified by:

feldt:~$ irb
irb(main):001:0> class T
irb(main):002:1> private
irb(main):003:1> def a; 1; end
irb(main):004:1> end
=> nil
irb(main):005:0> t = T.new
=> #<T:0xb7db90a8>
irb(main):006:0> t.a
NoMethodError: private method `a’ called for #<T:0xb7db90a8>
from (irb):6
from :0
irb(main):007:0> class T
irb(main):008:1> public :a
irb(main):009:1> end
=> T
irb(main):010:0> t.a
=> 1
irb(main):011:0>

/Robert F.

Thank you that looks to be just what I need.

Peter H. wrote:

I have a class with a lot of private utility methods that makes the code
a lot cleaner. However I want to test them with unit tests. How can I do
this if they are private?

I believe the standard workaround is to use obj#send(:your_method).

Regards,

Dan

On 5/15/06, Peter H. [email protected] wrote:

Thank you that looks to be just what I need.

Since this is a bit “unsafe” (considering that some dev might use your
tests as a kind of API/code doc and might miss that they are private
or whatever) I tend to test my private methods in a separate TestCase
and/or name the test methods accordingly to make this “unsafeness”
clearer to the reader.

Example:

require ‘test/unit’

class ClassUnderTest
public :priv1, :priv2
end

class UnitTest_PrivateMethods_ClassUnderTest < Test::Unit::TestCase
def test_01_private_priv1
end

end

class UnitTest_ClassUnderTest < Test::Unit::TestCase

“normal” tests goes here

end

Not sure if it really works but anyway…

I find the obj.send(:priv_method) technique a bit too cumbersome to
write if there are many tests.

Regards,

Robert