RSpec for User Input

Published on by gustavocguimaraes

I have been practicing writing tests more often. For this, I am using RSpec. The other day I wanted to write tests for a method that required a user’s input but I was not sure how to do it.

This is the method I wrote (I wrapped it in a class):


class Birthday
 
 def is_it_your_birthday?
  today = Date.today.strftime("%m/%d")
  puts "When is your birthday (mm/dd)?"
  puts gets.chomp == today ? "Happy Birthday!" : "It is just another day,then."
 end

end

As you can see, this method requires the user to enter a date in a month/day format and if the date s/he inputs matches today’s date it will prompt the string “Happy Birthday!” to the console.

I had no idea how to test the ruby “gets” method so I did what anyone in my situation would: Googled it.

I found the RSpec documentation and learned about many things that Rspec is able to do. But most importantly about how I could test the snippet of code above.

These are the tests I wrote after my research:


describe '#is_it_your_birthday?' do 
    it "should return \"Happy Birthday\" if user ipunt date matches today's date" do 
      date = Birthday.new
      date.stub(:gets) {Date.today.strftime("%m/%d")}
      expect(date.is_it_your_birthday?).to eq(puts "Happy Birthday!")
    end

    it "should return \"It is just another day then.\" if user input date does not match today's date" do 
      date = Birthday.new
      date.stub!(:gets) {Date.today.strftime("%m/%d").succ}
      expect(date.is_it_your_birthday?).to eq(puts "It is just another day, then.")
    end

  end

I stubbed Kernel#gets .stub!(:gets) to perform the task I wanted and mocked the user generated response in the block one example is {Date.today.strftime("%m/%d")}.

These tests worked just fine for me. It is the first time I created a test for the gets method. I wonder how would other people do it. If you have an better way to do it, please let me know by leaving your comment below.

Happy testing for all.

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