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Mocking a Super Class with MockBox

Luis Majano March 09, 2011

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Luis Majano

March 09, 2011

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A few folks have asked how you can leverage MXUnit and MockBox to mock a super class class.  Here is a simple example to showcase this:

Class Parent A

<cfcomponent name="A"> 
<!--- send ---> 
<cffunction access="public" hint="" name="send" output="false" returntype="any"> 
<cfreturn parent="">
</cffunction> 
</cfcomponent> 

Class Parent B

<cfcomponent extends="A" name="B"> 
	<!--- send ---> 
	<cffunction access="public" hint="" name="send" output="false" returntype="any"> 
		<cfargument default="" hint="" name="name" required="true" type="string"> 
		<cfif arguments.name neq ""> 
			<cfreturn name="arguments.name"> 
		<cfelse> 
			<cfreturn>
		</cfif> 
	</cffunction> 
</cfcomponent>

Here is our test case, please note that we use the coldbox package for simplicity, if you are using mockbox standalone, then just follow the docs.

<cfcomponent extends="coldbox.system.testing.BaseTestCase">
<cfscript> 
function setup(){ 
    // create and prepare for mocking. 
    b = getMockBox().prepareMock( createObject("component","B") ); 
} 

function testSend(){ 
    // create a virtual super scope and mock a send method on it 
    mockSuper = getMockBox().createStub().$("send","Mocked Super"); 
    
    // inject the mock super into the variables scope 
    b.$property("super","variables", mockSuper); 
    
    // send method call 
    r = b.send(); 
    
    // use simple mxunit debug to show results. 
    debug(r); 
} 
</cfscript>
</cfcomponent>

So as you can see, the super scope is just another reference in the variables scope, so I can easily create a MockBox stub and mock away. You can also be more concise if you want to leave the methods intact in the super scope by creating a mock of the parent class:

getMockBox().createMock("A").$("send","Mocked Super");

 

Add Your Comment

(2)

Mar 10, 2011 09:03:09 UTC

by Chris Tierney

Thanks Luis for this great write up!

What is you opinion on mocking a super class? Should it be mocked as the example provides or should it generally be treated as an all-in-one?

May 14, 2013 12:43:43 UTC

by duncan

Thanks for this useful post. It's a shame the blog has screwed up the layout of the code block.

Also the date of the post is reading as 1111 for the year

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