scotrug / darts

Dependency aware ruby tests
http://github.com/darts
MIT License
7 stars 1 forks source link

Warning - Alpha Software

The state of this code is currently prototype. We think it works, but it's very slow. We'd love contributions from people who'd like to help.

Darts :: Dynamic Analysis from Ruby Tests

When you use refactoring tools in curly-bracketed languages, the tools use static analysis to answer questions like:

Who calls this method? Is it even used anymore?

This particular bit of information makes confidently removing dead code a breeze, but there's a lot more you can learn from static analysis too.

In Ruby, this is not so easy, because the only way to really know how a Ruby program works is to watch it run.

DARTS watches (using code coverage tools) as you run your test suite, doing dynamic analysis to build a model of how your code fits together. With this information, we can also answer questions like:

If I change this code, which tests do I need to run?

When you practice test-driven-development, you know that every line of code you write has at least one test that covers it, but which one? Darts can tell you.

Usage

Query darts from the command line, like this:

darts into <filename>

That will return a list of examples you need to run. So you can chain this with the rspec command, like this:

rspec `darts into <filename>`

RSpec

In your spec_helper, do this:

require 'darts/rspec'

That will install darts' hooks to watch your code as the specs run.