[MO-java-users] Question about testing of database code with MockObjects

[James H. <jw...@al...>]

I'm just starting to experiment with using MockObjects to test classes 
which access a database.  I have some simple methods which I've been able 
to test, but now I'm trying to test some more complicated methods.  In 
particular I'm testing a method which uses another method to get a result 
which is then input into a second query.  It looks something like this (a 
rough approximation of the algorithm):

public double value() {
	int count = fullCount();  // this method peforms a count(*) type of query
	String query = "blah blah blah limit " + (count * .30);
	mockResults = mockStatement.executeQuery(query);
	if (mockResults.next())
		return mockResults.getDouble(1);
	return Double.NaN;
}

The problem is testing this method.  I'm doing two different queries so I 
need to get two different result sets.  I'm sure I can come up with some 
way to handle this, but I'm wondering if there is a general pattern for 
handling this sort of thing?  What bothers me is that in order to test my 
"value" method, I also have to know how to set up the environment to 
support methods that the method might call, and so on down the line.  Is 
there a better way to organize my database code which might avoid this 
problem?

Thanks.
	

-- 
James Howe