Testing STDOUT output in Rspec

Question

I am trying to build a spec for this statement. It is easy with \'puts\'

print \"\'#{@file}\' doesn\'t exist: Create Empty File (y/n)?\"

Answer 1

If your goal is only to be able to test this method, I would do it like this:

class Executable
  def initialize(outstream, instream, file)
    @outstream, @instream, @file = outstream, instream, file
  end

  def prompt_create_file
    @outstream.print "'#{@file}' doesn't exist: Create Empty File (y/n)?"
  end
end


# when executing for real, you would do something like
# Executable.new $stdout, $stdin, ARGV[0]

# when testing, you would do
describe 'Executable' do
  before { @input = '' }
  let(:instream)   { StringIO.new @input }
  let(:outstream)  { StringIO.new }
  let(:filename)   { File.expand_path '../testfile', __FILE__ }
  let(:executable) { Executable.new outstream, instream, filename }

  specify 'prompt_create_file prompts the user to create a new file' do
    executable.prompt_create_file
    outstream.string.should include "Create Empty File (y/n)"
  end
end

However, I want to point out that I would not test a method like this directly. Instead, I'd test the code that uses it. I was talking with a potential apprentice yesterday, and he was doing something very similar, so I sat down with him, and we reimplemented a portion of the class, you can see that here.

I also have a blog that talks about this kind of thing.