How do I teardown fixture while using a TestCase obj in interactive mode?

I found matlab.unittest.TestCase.forInteractiveUse extremely useful for development and debugging of test cases written for matlab.unittest.TestCase.

But if I use applyFixture method of a test method of such a TestCase obj that is in interattive mode by forInteractiveUse, how do I teardown the fixture? Simply deleting the TestCase won't does it, will it?

For example, say I have a TestCase class like this:

   classdef testcase1 < matlab.unittest.TestCase
     methods (Test)
       function testmethod1(testCase)
         testCase.applyFixture(thisfixture);

         % blah, blah, blah

       end
     end
   end

Then, for development, I excute the following command:

   testCase = testcase1; testCase.forInteractiveUse;

Then I can evaluate anything within the TestCase just like a script. However, in case a test method uses matlab.unittest.fixtures.Fixture for setup, I would like to do this:

   testCase.applyFixture(fixtureforthis);

Then I can comfortablly evaluate/debug the rest of code in the test method. My question is how can I get out of this state. How can I invoke teardown method of the fixture thisfixture while in interactive mode?

Answer 1

[Kouichi Nakamura]

Actually, deletion of the testcase1 object testCase does invoke the teadown method. Thus, combinatory use of forInteractiveUse and appyFixture is very efficient.

Answer 2

[Andy Campbell]

Hello Kouichi,

Yes applyFixture ties the fixture teardown step to the lifecycle of the testCase upon which it is applied, so once the testCase is deleted the fixture will indeed get torn down as you have seen.

However, this line confuses me:

    testCase = testcase1; testCase.forInteractiveUse;

What that is doing is creating a new instance of the testcase1 class which will not inform you of failures as you play with it on the command line. For example, testCase.verifyEqual(1,0) will not show you any diagnostics that desrcibe that 1 is not equal to 0.

Then, testCase.forInteractiveUse calls a static method (not using the testCase instance you created, it is equivalent to matlab.unittest.TEstCase.forInteractiveUse) that creates a new testCase instance which isn't even of type testcase1, but that has the correct configuration applied to show you diagnostics at the command line. It seems perhaps you are looking for something that neither the first line nor the second is really giving you. Can you explain more about what you need?

Thanks, Andy

Answer 3

[Kouichi Nakamura]

Thanks. For the question I raised, now I'm fine with deletion of testCase object. At least it does what I expected. But what you pointed out interested me, because I was not happy with how forInteractiveUse actually works.

It is understandable that in the following case, testCase has nothing to do with any of my custom class. It is a call of a static method.

import matlab.unittest.TestCase;
testCase = TestCase.forInteractiveUse;

However, I found that the following does not allow me to access properties of MyClass class, while I can use methods like testCase.verifyEqual(). Reading your post, it seems that this command still invokes static method of the parent class matlab.unittest.TestCase.

testCase = MyClass.forInteractiveUse

testCase = 

    TestCase with no properties.

I wanted to be able to access to properties of MyClass (if I can't, I can't really evaluate my test code at all) as well as to call methods like verifyEqual. I tried random shots and the following seems to work for me.

testCase = MyClass; 
testCase.forInteractiveUse;

I noticed when I run the above commands, the testCase object of MyClass with properties and a ans object that is another instance of matlab.unittest.TestCase with no property.

Interestingly, even after I delete the ans object of matlab.unittest.TestCase class, I can still execute the following command. How is it possible to use testCase in Interactive mode in this situation? It's weird.

>> clear ans

>> testCase.verifyEqual(1,1)
Interactive verification passed.

>> testCase.applyFixture(myfixture);

Setup of myfixture works. It generates ans object of 1x1 myfixture class. Deletion of this ans does not invoke teardown, while deletion of testCase does. I'm using R2014a.

[Andy Campbell]

Thanks for the info Kouichi.

We can look into providing a way for the interactive listeners to be added to your sublcass of testcase so that you can interact with your test case and its methods and properties while still having all of the interactive output provided to the command window.

In 14a, you have the interactive behavior when just constructing the object, but that is problematic and is very likley to change in a future release. For now, you don't need to call forInteractiveUse at all for your case and you can just construct the isntance. However, in the future you may need to use a different function or method call to create an instance of MyClass that includes this interactive behavior.

Thanks, Andy

[Kouichi Nakamura]

Sorry, I didn't realize you had replied to my comment. Indeed, it seems that I completely mistook the point of using forInteractiveUse! Just creating an instance of myClass ( <matlab.unittest.TestCase ) sufficed. I can use methods including verifyEqual and applyFixture and access to properties as well. Thanks for correcting my confusion.

I'm looking forward to future release, but rather hesitant to go to R2014b onwards due to the radical change in graphic object handles...

[Andy Campbell]

Note, as of R2015b you can get interactive testCase instances for your own subclasses by passing the desired meta.class as an input argument to the forInteractiveUse static method:

 tc = matlab.unittest.TestCase.forInteractiveUse(?MyClass)

This allows you to have your interactive listeners placed on your own sublcass of TestCase so that you can also call any helper methods or properties of your TestCase class.

Enjoy! Andy