RTFSpec – A Spec-like Testing Framework for Clojure

Tests fulfil two main roles in modern software development:

• Assert that the code work as specified
• Document what was specified

Some existing tools for Clojure get the first right but I am not satisfied with how any of them perform in the documentation bit. To solve this problem I present yet another testing framework.

RTFSpec tries to apply the vocabulary defined by RFC-2119 , using the imperatives MUST, MUST NOT, SHOULD and SHOULD NOT. I decided to not use MAY and MAY NOT as tests should be deterministic.

A typical example using RTFSpec looks like this:

(use 'rtfspec)

(spec "List Comprehensions"
      (must "return a list applying the given function"
	    (= (list 11 12 13 14 15)
	       (for [a (list 1 2 3 4 5)] (+ 10 a))))

      (must "include elements that are not matched by the :while clause"
		(empty?
		   (for [a (list 1 2 3 4 5) :when (= a (+ 10 a))] a))))

Running this through ant:

<rtfspec failonerror=“true” fork=“true” dir=“${test.clojure-core.dir}/”>
<classpath>
<path refid=“test.dependencies”/>
</classpath>
</rtfspec>

You have the output:

[rtfspec] ..
[rtfspec]  2 Tests ( 2 Successful 0 Failed 0 Pending 0 Exceptions )

Check the tests included in the source distribution for more info.

TODO

For beta

• Documentation :)
• Exception stacktraces are being print in wrong order
• Nice error messages for malformed facts
• Some way to expect an exception
• Asserters and matchers

Nice to have

• Autospec
• Code coverage
• Run tests in parallel
• More smoke tests, tests for core.clj would be lovely
• Run functions against a domain