[PD] regression testing WAS Re: [psql] object hand-holding

Mathieu Bouchard matju at artengine.ca
Mon Dec 24 19:50:34 CET 2007


On Mon, 24 Dec 2007, zmoelnig at iem.at wrote:
> Quoting Mathieu Bouchard <matju at artengine.ca>:
>> I think that pretty much anyone doing automated tests so far agree that
>> it's better to have just all tests be written in the positive way, so
>> that you don't have to ever exchange the meanings of PASS and FAIL.
> i needed it to test the framework itself.
> i believe that this is important.
> (and i am doing automated tests and do not agree that just all tests
> ought to be written in a positive way)
> my proposals where not about a theoretic test-framework, but based in
> my practical experiences with an automated test-framework.
> i that i learned quite a lot about tests....

Oh, there are lot of very practical people doing very practical testing 
and never ever using fail-tests. Actually, you're the first one that ever 
told me about negative tests. Anyone else would test for an error like 
this:

   def infinite_recursion
     infinite_recursion
   end

   def test_infinite_recursion
     begin
       infinite_recursion
     rescue Exception => this_error
       return this_error == SystemStackError
     end
     return false
   end

So they would check that infinite_recursion causes an error, and then 
check whether it's the correct error, and then return true (PASS) if it 
does, and if it's the wrong error, return false (FAIL), and likewise if 
infinite_recursion ever returned. They don't ever return false to mean 
true and true to mean false.

I still don't know how you got there. Good for you that you found it from 
experience. I hope that it was a good experience, but if you keep it that 
much secret, there's no way I can relate to that experience.

  _ _ __ ___ _____ ________ _____________ _____________________ ...
| Mathieu Bouchard - tél:+1.514.383.3801, Montréal QC Canada


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