Re: [Asunit-users] Testing view classes (subclasses of MovieClip and the likes)

[Luke B. <lb...@gm...>]

Hey Marcelo,

We definitely don't ship test code in our production swf files, but we do
make sure that everything our production code has access to, is available in
our test harness. Regardless of how you physically segment test classes from
production code, the compiler will only include classes that are referenced
one way or another from the main class (MTASC), the main timeline, or
exported symbols (FLA). test cases point at production code, but production
code never references test cases. We have seen projects built with the test
classes alongside the production classes, test packages inside production
packages and like you, have settled on the mirrored test package approach.
Basically, it doesn't matter where the test classes are as long as nothing
from your production compilation references them.

In environments where we have to use a fla file, we use authoring to compile
it once, then tell MTASC to use the resulting swf file as 'input'. When you
do this, mtasc has access to all those visual assets by their linkage ids -
forms and animations and whatnot. I also (quite handily) clobbers all
ActionScript classes and replaces them with bytecode from it's compilation.
This is a rather simple compiler flag available in MTASC.

This process tends to work pretty well since we generally modify the code
much more frequently than the visual asset fla. I wouldn't recommend
creating multiple, separate fla files for each different form as this can
make sharing assets and clean compilation much more complicated.

When you say, "I don't insert any code on the fla file at all. Everything is
coded on external AS2 classes", of course we don't write any ActionScript in
the authoring tool, but we do associate ActionScript 2 classes with symbols
in the fla library using the symbol properties dialog. This generally seems
to work fine - even when post-compiling using MTASC. But the point is that
we wind up with a fla/swf file that is compiled with MMC (Authoring) - then
use MTASC to build the deployed and test harness SWF files. If we were going
to try building something modular that could load separate content swfs as
needed, I suspect we would use a similar process, using MTASC exclude
directives to make the subsequent modular swfs...

As far as MovieClip instantiation that relies on symbols that aren't
available in the test harness, I would argue that a test swf that doesn't
include everything that exists in the production swf is not thoroughly
testing your production functionality.

Does that help?


Thanks,


Luke Bayes
www.asunit.org



On 12/29/06, Marcelo de Moraes Serpa wrote:
>
> This line is usually switched from running our application main function
> > to running our test suite main function
>
>
> I couldn't really understand, Luke. The way I'm doing right now is having
> a test swf and that is all. The way you put it, seems like you mix test code
> with production code, is that right?
>
> Let me explain better how I've set up my unit testing workflow:
>
> I'm using AS2ANT unittest task. So, I compile the TestRunner into a swf
> file and run it before proceeding with the rest of the build. I have two
> identical project trees - one for the production source files and one for
> theses classes' test classes, like this:
>
> * com.cconline.views.IndexView
> * tests.com.cconline.views.IndexViewTest
>
> All the main test classes (TestSuite and TestRunner) are on the test.*
> namespace.
>
> My project consists of various .fla files, one for each of the
> application's views (forms). I find fla's easier for making complex
> design-oriented layouts and sometimes animations. I don't insert any code on
> the fla file at all. Everything is coded on external AS2 classes.
>
> It wasn't also clear on how should I handle MovieClip instantiation on the
> test swf when this MovieClip relies on assets that are not present on the
> test swf's library.
>
> Thanks a lot for the help!
>
> Marcelo.
>
> On 12/29/06, Luke Bayes <lb...@gm...> wrote:
> >
> > Hey Marcelo,
> >
> > There are a couple of issues you're talking about here, I'm going to
> > restate them a little differently, please let me know if this is inaccurate.
> >
> > 1) Should I ever write a unit test for a visual entity?
> > Yes. There are definitely times when views have code. Even using MVC,
> > the view is responsible for some work and unit testing can verify that this
> > work is being done as expected.
> >
> > 2) How do I structure an application for unit testing?
> > Ali and I spent a considerable amount of time thinking about this
> > problem, and after quite a bit of trial and error, we realized that one of
> > the most important aspects to testing is that the environment your test
> > harness operates in should be as nearly identical to your production
> > environment as possible. This includes library assets, frameworks, etc...
> > For example, Macromedia's components manipulate some core object prototypes,
> > add functions to _global and place assets on _root in a very high level
> > which affects our ability to use _root.getNextHighestDepth(). IF we are
> > using components in our application, but fail to load that library into our
> > test swf, we will see behaviors in production that are very different from
> > those that we find in our tests.
> >
> > We generally try to avoid using a fla file if at all possible, but if we
> > are forced to use a .fla file for a project, the most important thing that
> > we do, is avoid doing any real work on the main timeline. If we have some
> > animation or some frame-based work that needs done, we put it into a
> > MovieClip. The main timeline of our .fla files generally has one line of
> > ActionScript. This line is usually switched from running our application
> > main function to running our test suite main function. This has the added
> > benefit of allowing us to point MTASC at either of these main functions and
> > simply swallow the MMC-compiled swf file.
> >
> > // SomeApplication.main();
> > SomeApplicationRunner.main();
> >
> > I hope that helps.
> >
> >
> > Luke Bayes
> > www.asunit.org
> >
> >
> > On 12/29/06, Marcelo de Moraes Serpa wrote:
> > >
> > > Hi Luke, thanks for the reply :)
> > >
> > > It is still not clear to me the role of MovieClip classes on asunit
> > > unit tests. From what I've been reading about Unit Testing so far, I can
> > > understand that visual entities should not be unit tested directly. Instead,
> > > the business classes that are used by it should be tested and I don't think
> > > business classes should inherit MovieClip (am I misunderstanding something
> > > here?).
> > >
> > > But let's say I really want to instantiate a MovieClip class on my
> > > unit test. The XUL UI feature you described is for creating mock objects for
> > > MovieClip classes, right? I'm asking this becouse it would be too much of a
> > > stress to try to instantiate a regular "non-serializable" MovieClip class as
> > > it depends on assets that are not present on the test swf library (and
> > > should not be present, I'm almost sure!).
> > >
> > > Cheers,
> > >
> > > Marcelo.
> > >
> > >
> >
> >
> > -------------------------------------------------------------------------
> > Take Surveys. Earn Cash. Influence the Future of IT
> > Join SourceForge.net's Techsay panel and you'll get the chance to share
> > your
> > opinions on IT & business topics through brief surveys - and earn cash
> >
> > http://www.techsay.com/default.php?page=join.php&p=sourceforge&CID=DEVDEV
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > Asunit-users mailing list
> > Asu...@li...
> > https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/asunit-users
> >
> >
> >
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------
> Take Surveys. Earn Cash. Influence the Future of IT
> Join SourceForge.net's Techsay panel and you'll get the chance to share
> your
> opinions on IT & business topics through brief surveys - and earn cash
> http://www.techsay.com/default.php?page=join.php&p=sourceforge&CID=DEVDEV
>
> _______________________________________________
> Asunit-users mailing list
> Asu...@li...
> https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/asunit-users
>
>
>