is

A very minimal, highly simplified testing framework for golang 1.18 and above.

Features

• 1-line test descriptions (no need for if/else)
• positive as well as negative results ("passed ...")
  • go test ./... => shows failed tests only
  • go test -v ./... => show passed and failed tests
• consistent output formatting
  • easier to read and comprehend test results
    • errors produce 3 lines:
      • your message
      • the received value
      • the expected value

Usage

import (
       "testing"

       "codeberg.org/japh/is"
       )

func TestGreetings( t *testing.T ) {
    is := is.New(t)

    a := "hello"
    is.Equal(a, "hello", "a pleasant greeting")
    is.NotEqual(a, "hi", "a pleasant greeting")

    b := &struct{
        name string
        pet  *Pet
    }{
        name:"Jenny",
    }
    is.NotNil(b, "be should not be nil")
    is.Equal(b.name, "Jenny", "is the name 'Jenny'")
    is.Nil(b.pet, "Jenny does not have any pets :-(")
}

Support For Data Driven Test Cases

The is package also provides a simple way to provide tables of test data.

e.g.

func TestGreetingCategorizer( t *testing.T ) {
    is := is.New(t)

    testCases := is.TableFromString(`
        | greeting     | category | description                                 |
        | ------------ | -------- | ------------------------------------------- |
        | Good Evening | formal   | greeting for evenings, e.g. at a restaurant |
        | Hello        | informal | typical greeting                            |
        | Hi           | casual   | only among friends                          |
        | Salutations  | archaic  | where did you hear this?                    |
        `)

    // value is a function which returns the string value of the column with a
    // given name.
    value := testCases.FieldByNameFunc()

    for _, tc := testCases.DataRows() {
        givenGreeting := value(tc,"greeting")
        wantCategory := value(tc,"category")
        description := value(tc,"desc")

        gotCategory := categoryOfWord(greeting)

        is.Equal(gotCategory, wantCategory, description)
    }
}

Background

There are plenty of feature-rich testing frameworks for go, incuding go's own testing package, however, I haven't found any that fit my testing philosophy:

• go's testing package assumes that all tests ran and only reports errors.

  In my experience, saying "nothing broke" is not the same as "everyting worked", so I want positive feedback as well.

• other packages, such as testify, go in the other direction, providing feature-rich API's with everything you could possible want, at the expense of additional complexity.

... but I just want to check simple yes/no expectations, with equally simple, readable output. And this is it :-)

• and then I saw Mat Ryer's is | github
  • which was a bit simpler
  • but a bit too minimalistic
  • so this version of is was created
  • differences
    • uses a per-test instance to simplify the interface

Copyright

2021, Stephen Riehm, japh-codeberg@opensauce.de