ngImprovedTesting 0.2: adding $q.tick() to improve testing promises

Posted on November 27, 2014 by Emil van Galen

NOTE: Just released version 0.2.2 of ngImprovedTesting to fix issue #6 causing chained promises (i.e. .then(...).then(...)) not to executed by a $q.tick(); also see README of the GitHub repo.

After quite a while I finally got round to creating version 0.2 of ngImprovedTesting.
The ModuleBuilder API is unchanged and still makes mock testing AngularJS code much easier (be sure to read this blog post if you are unfamiliar with ngImprovedTesting).

Version 0.2 of ngImprovedTesting brings you the following interesting improvements:

ngModuleIntrospector no longer uses internal AngularJS API.
mocks can now also be created manually using the (global) “mockInstance” function.
features a more descriptive way of testing promises by adding the tick() method to $q.
offers an module called “ngImprovedTesting” to be able to use $q.tick() in your tests without having to use the ModuleBuilder API (which automatically includes the module).

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Awesome Asciidoctor: Using Document Fragments

Posted on November 27, 2014 by mrhaki

Normally all Asciidoc files are processed and transformed to output files by Asciidoctor. But if we start the file name with an underscore (_) the file is not transformed to an output file. This is very useful, because we can define some Asciidoc document fragments and include them in other Asciidoc files, but in the output directory the document fragment is not generated.

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Gradle Goodness: Using and Working with Gradle Version

Posted on November 26, 2014 by mrhaki

To get the current Gradle version we can use the gradleVersion property of the Gradle object. This returns a string value we can use for displaying the values. If we want to compare Gradle versions we can use the GradleVersion object. With this class we can get the current version, but we can also compare Gradle versions. This can be useful in our build scripts if we have functionality based on a Gradle version.

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Gradle Goodness: Using CopySpec with Tasks

Posted on November 25, 2014 by mrhaki

To define a Copy task we specify the files we want to copy and to which directory. This definition is a CopySpec instance. It contains the rules that defines what we want to copy. The archive tasks Jar, Zip and Tar also use a CopySpec instance.

When we create a task of type Copy we get a task object that implements the CopySpec interface. We can use all the methods from this interface to extend our recipe for copying tasks. In the following build file we first define the task website. We use CopySpec methods to configure the task. Then we define a task deploy of type Sync that also implements the CopySpec interface.

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Awesome Asciidoctor: Changing the Grid and Frame of Tables

Posted on November 24, 2014 by mrhaki

We can change the frames and grid of tables we define in Asciidoctor. We use the frames attribute to change the outside frame of a table. We can choose between topbot for top and bottom, sides for only a frame at the sides of the table, none if we don’t want a frame. The default value all create a frame around our table with top, sides and bottom.

To change the inner grid of a table we use the grids table attribute. The default value all displays a grid for columns and rows inside the table. The value cols only displays a grid between columns, value rows display a grid between rows and with value none there will be no grid inside our table.

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Web-components like AngularJS directives

Posted on November 20, 2014 by Richard Rijnberk

As you may already know web components consist out of a set of technologies which are combined to create a custom element for use in your HTML markup. The main additions, as described in several blogposts, are HTML imports, Shadow Dom and Templates combined with isolated scripts and styling. (If these concepts are new to you i suggest you read up on web components at WebComponents.org).

This blog post has a living example on plnkr.co.

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Spock: Using ConfineMetaClassChanges when using MetaClass mocking

Posted on November 19, 2014 by Albert van Veen

One of the handy features of Groovy is to change the behavior of classes using MOP (Meta-Object Protocol). We change the metaClass property of a class to alter an implementation. You can for example override a static method of a class. See the example below:

class UserSpec extends Specification {

    def “test user”() {
        given:
        // we can mock static methods...
        User.metaClass.static.findByName = { name -> 
            new User(name: ‘Albert’) }
        when:
        User user = User.findByName(‘Albert’)

        then:
        user.name == ‘Albert’

        when:
        // .. but also non-static methods
        user.metaClass.getName = { return ‘Dries’ }

        then:
        user.name == ‘Dries’
    }

}

class UserSpec extends Specification {

def “test user”() {

given:

// we can mock static methods...

User.metaClass.static.findByName = { name ->

new User(name: ‘Albert’) }

when:

User user = User.findByName(‘Albert’)

then:

user.name == ‘Albert’

when:

// .. but also non-static methods

user.metaClass.getName = { return ‘Dries’ }

then:

user.name == ‘Dries’

}

However this way of mocking has a nasty side effect. Since we apply changes on the User on class level, the changes are also applied in all our other test cases. This can have some unexpected behavior in your other tests

To prevent this Spock has introduced the @ConfineMetaClassChanges annotation. This annotation makes sure the class will return to its original state when it was used in our test.

See the example below:

@ConfineMetaClassChanges([User]) // you can add multiple classes in the annotation
class UserSpec extends Specification {
...
}

@ConfineMetaClassChanges([User]) // you can add multiple classes in the annotation

class UserSpec extends Specification {

...

}

Be aware: this means when some other test did changes to the User class without using @ConfineMetaClassChanges, these changes will be still applicable when the test which has @ConfineMetaClassChanges restores the User class to its old state.

Awesome Asciidoctor: Use Asciidoctor Diagram with Gradle

Posted on November 17, 2014 by mrhaki

Since Asciidoctor 1.5.0 we can use extensions when we write AsciiDoc documents. These extensions can be written in Ruby or any JVM language. If we use Gradle and the Asciidoctor Gradle plugin to transform our documents we can use both extensions. Of course an extension written in for example Java or Groovy can be included as a regular dependency in our build configuration. As the extension is on the classpath of the asciidoctor task then it can be used. When the extension is a Ruby extension and available as a Ruby gem we need some more configuration in our build file. To use an Asciidoctor extension written in Ruby in our build we must first make sure that we can download the extension. Then we can configure the asciidoctor task from the Asciidoctor Gradle plugin to use the extension.

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Awesome Asciidoctor: Styling Columns and Cells in Tables

Posted on November 12, 2014 by mrhaki

In a previous post we learned how to use Asciidoc markup in a table. The a character is just one of many styles we can define in our table. In this blog post we see which style options we have. We can either use the cols attribute to define a style for a whole column or specify per cell the style.

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Awesome Asciidoctor: Changing Table and Column Width

Posted on November 11, 2014 by mrhaki

When we define a table in Asciidoctor the columns all have the same width and the table will the whole width of the page. Of course we can change this when we define the table. We can change the table width with the width attribute. We specify the column width with the cols attribute.

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