How can I mock with a block in minitest?

Question

Hopefully a simple question for MiniTest folks..

I have a section of code which I'll condense into an example here:

class Foo
  def initialize(name)
    @sqs    = Aws::SQS::Client.new
    @id     = @sqs.create_queue( queue_name: name ).fetch(:queue_url)
    @poller = Aws::SQS::QueuePoller.new(@id)
  end
  def pick_first
    @poller.poll(idle_timeout: 60) do |message|
      process_msg(message) if some_condition(message)
    end
  end

How can I mock/stub/something-else so that I can feed a message through to be tested by the some_condition() and possibly processed with process_msg()?

I.e. I want to test the @poller.poll(idle_timeout: 60) do |message|.

I have tried to stub the Aws::SQS::QueuePoller#new with a mock poller, but it's not yielding the message to |message| just returning it..

This is what I have, which is not working:

mockqueue = MiniTest::Mock.new

mocksqs = MiniTest::Mock.new
mocksqs.expect :create_queue, mockqueue, [Hash]

mockpoller = MiniTest::Mock.new                                                                                                                         
mockpoller.expect :poll, 'message', [{ idle_timeout: 60 }]

Aws::SQS::Client.stub :new, mocksqs do
  Aws::SQS::QueuePoller.stub :new, mockpoller do
    queue = Foo.new(opts)
    queue.pick_first
  end
end

If I receive a variable in #pick_first, that's where the mock puts it, not into |message|:

def pick_first
    receiver = @poller.poll(idle_timeout: 60) do |message|
      process_msg(message) if some_condition(message)
    end
    puts receiver # this shows my 'message' !!! WHYYYY??
  end

Answer 1

Answering my own question, in case someone else has the same question.

I asked for help on this via Twitter, and the author of MiniTest, Ryan Davis (aka @zenspider on github / @the_zenspider on Twitter) gave a quick answer along with an invite to submit the question to the MiniTest github issue tracker.

I did so, and got a couple of great responses, from Ryan and also from Pete Higgins (@phiggins on github), which I reproduce here in their entirety. Thank you to both of you for your help!

---

@phiggins said:

What about something like:

class Foo   def initialize(name, opts={})
  @sqs    = Aws::SQS::Client.new
  @id     = @sqs.create_queue( queue_name: name ).fetch(:queue_url)
  @poller = opts.fetch(:poller) { Aws::SQS::QueuePoller.new(@id) }   end

  def pick_first
    @poller.poll(idle_timeout: 60) do |message|
    process_msg(message) if some_condition(message)
    end
  end
end

# later, in your tests
describe Foo do
  it "does the thing in the block" do
  # could be moved into top-level TestPoller, or into shared setup, etc.
  poller = Object.new
  def poller.poll(*) ; yield ; end

  foo = Foo.new("lol", :poller => poller)
  foo.pick_first

  assert foo.some_state_was_updated
  end
end

---

@zenspider said:

NOTE: I'm anti-mock. I'm almost anti-stub for that matter. IMHO, if you can't test something without mocking it, you probably have a design issue. Calibrate accordingly against the text below.

I suggested using Liskov Substitution Principal (LSP) because I was focused on testing that process_msg did the right thing in that context. The idea is simple, subclass, override the method in question, and use the subclass within the tests. LSP says that testing a subclass is equivalent to testing the superclass.

In the case of the polling object, you have three concerns (polling, filtering, and processing) going on in that method, one of whom you shouldn't be testing (because it is third-party code). I'd refactor to something like this:

class Foo
  # ....

  def poll
    @poller.poll(idle_timeout: 60) do |message|
      yield message
    end
  end

  def pick_first
    poll do |message|
      process_msg(message) if some_condition(message)
    end
  end
end

Then testing is a simple matter:

class TestFoo1 < Foo
  def poll
    yield 42 # or whatever
  end

  # ...
end

# ...

assert_equal 42, TestFoo1.new.pick_first # some_condition truthy
assert_nil       TestFoo2.new.pick_first # some_condition falsey

There are shorter/"rubyier" ways to do this, but they're equivalent to the above and the above illustrates the point better.