bang

Bang! Bang!

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Bang! Bang! is a BRASS compliant assertions framework with a very clever design that translates any bang call, e.g. #foo! into an assertion based on the corresponding query call if it exists, e.g. #foo?. In practice the framework is similar to MiniTest's spec methods, e.g. #must_equal, but the dynamic nature of Bang! Bang! makes it much more flexible, as it is not limited to a finite set of assertion methods.

It's also pretty interesting idea that bang methods would be assertion methods. In general practice bang methods are usually used for methods that change the state of an object in-place. But this isn't particularly necessary and is just as well handled by non-bang methods, e.g. #update vs #merge!.

Instructions

Usage is pretty straight forward.

    require 'bang'

    "This string".equals!("That string")  #=> raises Bang::Assertion

To use Bang! Bang! most effectively with common test frameworks, you may need to load an adapter to ensure the framework recognizes the assertions as such rather than as ordinary errors.

For MiniTest use:

    require 'bang/minitest'`

For TestUnit use:

    require 'bang/testunit'

An RSpec adapter is in the works.

Cucumber does not require an adapter as it does not differentiate errors from assertions.

Note, these adapters simply require the brass/adapters/minitest and brass/adapters/testunit respectively along with bang. So that's another way to do it too.

On Robustness

Bang! Bang! works via a set of core extensions. There may be some concern about this approach for a test framework. I can assure you that the fear of the inaptly named "monkey patch" is very much overwrought.

Even though Bang! Bang! adds a #method_missing call to the Object class, it is almost always okay to use because it does not get called if an object already has a bang method defined for it's own use. And when it does get called it only applies if a corresponding query (e.g. foo?) method exists.

The other core extensions it adds are simply convenience methods that make testing easier. Because these are only additions and not overrides, it is perfectly safe to use in all but the most esoteric cases (such a heavy meta-programming). In fact, if a program doesn't work because of these core extensions, that's usually a good indication that something isn't being done right in the program itself.

Copyrights

Bang Bang is copyrighted open source software.

Copyright (c) 2012 Rubyworks

You can redistribute it in accordance to the BSD-2-Clause license.

See the included LICENSE.txt file for details.