Re: [wxperl-users] Faking Events for Testing in WxPerl

[Mattia B. <mat...@li...>]

On Fri, 04 Aug 2006 22:41:51 -0400
Ed Heil <ed...@do...> wrote:

  Hi,

> We've been talking about trying to put together a "test scripting
> language" for our big wxPerl application.
> 
> We'd like to be able to write  a file full of commands stated in some
> very simplistic code like --
> 
> 
> text-enter name "Smith"
> button-click update
> check name equals "Smith"
> 
> that sort of thing -- and have the program trigger the appropriate
> series of events, and make sure the right things happen.
> 
> I tried to put together a minimalist, "proof of concept" demo.  I put
> together in wxglade a tiny application with a couple buttons and other
> controls on it.  I made an event handler for the first button which
> called the function $frame->fake_event().  fake_event looks like this:
> 
> 
> sub fake_event {
>    my $self=shift;
>    my $entry = "Testing";
>    my $event=Wx::CommandEvent->new(wxEVT_COMMAND_BUTTON_CLICKED);
>    $event->SetEventObject($self->{button2});
> }
> 

  $window->GetEventHandler()->ProcessEvent( $event );

> I'd only gotten that far -- I hadn't figured out any more than
> generating the event and setting its EventObject -- and I ran that
> and got this --
> 
> C:\src>EventTester.pl
> 
> (I clicked on the button to trigger fake_event and...)
> 
> Can't locate object method "SetEventObject" via package
> "Wx::CommandEvent" at C:
> \src\EventTester.pl line 169.
> 
> C:\src>
> 
> 
> Uh oh.  SetEventObject is a method of Wx::Event, and Wx::CommandEvent is
> a subclass of Wx::Event, so that should have been found.
> 
> I've got two basic questions --
> 
> 1. For people who know wxWidgets better than I do -- does this seem like
> a profitable direction to go?  Is this a crazy, doomed idea or is it
> supposed to be possible to do this sort of thing?

  I think this will work for many common cases, so it is a reasonable
way to go; it does not cover 100% of the cases though. And while faking
(say) button events is trivial, wxTreeCtrl events might be more difficult
to fake.

  http://www.wefi.net/swWxGuiTesting/ uses the same approach. I wanted
to experiment with it (it even has an event recorder) but I could not
get it to compile. It would be probably be easier and cleaner to rewrite
it in Perl (because Perl is much more dynamic than C++, which I think
will help in this case).
 
> 2. Was that error ("Can't locate object method") just missing its perl
> wrapper, or was something deeper going wrong?

  Just missing a perl wrapper.

void
wxEvent::SetEventObject( object )
    wxObject* object

in Event.xs should suffice. Let me know if it works.

HTH
Mattia