A question of test complexity

andreas1234567 has asked for the wisdom of the Perl Monks concerning the following question:

I work on expanding Test::MockDBI to address some of its limitations (e.g. support for fetchrow_hashref and control of errstr, see also a cpanratings review). It uses a test setup where test programs are generated on the fly. The motivation for doing so is noted in the HISTORY:

- The separate test programs are autogenerated so they use the correct #! startup line.

It works like this:

First, the Makefile.PL reads t-src/bad_param-ok.PL and writes t/bad_param-ok.pl.
Then, make test executes t/bad_param.t, which invokes t/bad_param-ok.pl.

It strikes me as unnecessarily complex. If I were to expand the module, do you think I should continue using the same approach?

--
No matter how great and destructive your problems may seem now, remember, you've probably only seen the tip of them. [1]

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Re: A question of test complexity by dragonchild (Archbishop) on Nov 19, 2008 at 14:31 UTC
First off, why support Test::MockDBI when DBD::Mock exists? The maintainer of that module would love some help, as he's told me more than once. That method of generating tests is completely outdated and should be rewritten completely. It's unnecessarily complex and doesn't play well with Test::Harness. Put everything into .t files and get rid of the multiple invocations. For one thing, being able to say "prove t/foo.t" is nice. My criteria for good software: Does it work? Can someone else come in, make a change, and be reasonably certain no bugs were introduced?	[reply]
Re^2: A question of test complexity by andreas1234567 (Vicar) on Dec 05, 2008 at 08:39 UTC
That method of generating tests is completely outdated and should be rewritten completely. The test suite of Test::MockDBI has been completely rewritten as of version 0.62. See Changes. -- No matter how great and destructive your problems may seem now, remember, you've probably only seen the tip of them. [1]	[reply]