Accessing a variable defined in another function in Groovy - groovy

Question

I am new to Groovy.
I have a function in which I am writing a value to map.
def addTraceEntry(key, value) {
def traceability = [:]
traceability[key] = value.trim()
println "This print happens in function addTraceEntry " + traceability
}
I have another function that needs to verify whether the above function works properly.
def testAddTraceEntry() {
def key = 'test_key'
def value = 'test_value'
addTraceEntry(key, value)
println "This print happens in function testAddTraceEntry " + traceability
assert value == traceability[key]
}
I am invoking the testAddTraceEntry() function using the function name:
testAddTraceEntry()
When I run this, I get the ERROR:
This print happens in function addTraceEntry [test_key:test_value]
Caught: groovy.lang.MissingPropertyException: No such property: traceability for class: HelloWorld
groovy.lang.MissingPropertyException: No such property: traceability for class: HelloWorld
at HelloWorld.testAddTraceEntry(HelloWorld.groovy:53)
at HelloWorld.run(HelloWorld.groovy:57)
In the function testAddTraceEntry it clearly does not know the value of traceability so seems like its giving an ERROR for that.
I tried to return the value of traceability.
def addTraceEntry(key, value) {
def traceability = [:]
traceability[key] = value.trim()
println "This print happens in function addTraceEntry " + traceability
return traceability
}
But this yields the same ERROR.

Answer 1

There are a bunch of things worth mentioning after seeing the code you have wrote.
First thing - the scope of variables and encapsulation. Let's throw away technicalities for a moment and focus on something even more important. In method addTraceEntry you persist some state, which is fine. However, the implementation of the method testAddTraceEntry reveals that this method tries to know way to much about the implementation details of addTraceEntry. It encapsulates (hides in other words) persistence logic (from the API point of view you, as a caller, don't know that it persists key and a value inside the map) and that is why testAddTraceEntry should never ever make assumptions that calling this method mutated some structure. If you do so, then:
your test method contracts side effects and not the expected business logic (storing data in some kind of global map - don't do it. Ever)
your test blocks any evolution of tested method implementation - imagine, that you decided to store key and value in a different structure. You may do it without breaking any API contract (your function produces the same results), but the test method will fail and you will have to modify it.
Second thing - your addTraceEntry method always produces a map with a single entry. It doesn't make much sense and if you call your function let's say 4 times you will end up with 4 maps where each one of them contain a single key mapped to a single value.
There are at least various ways to improve implementation of your methods. The simplest thing you can do is to implement a class that encapsulates logic for storing keys and values. Consider following example:
import java.util.concurrent.ConcurrentHashMap
import java.util.concurrent.ConcurrentMap
class TraceEntriesStorage {
private final ConcurrentMap<String, Object> entries = [:] as ConcurrentHashMap
def addTraceEntry(String key, Object value) {
entries.put(key, value)
}
def containsTraceEntry(String key) {
return entries.containsKey(key)
}
def retrieveTraceEntryForKey(String key) {
return entries.get(key)
}
}
This is a simple class with 3 short methods. It stores trace entries inside the internal concurrent map (to solve problems with concurrent access). Now, your test method could look like this:
def storage = new TraceEntriesStorage()
storage.addTraceEntry("test_key", "test_value")
assert storage.containsTraceEntry("test_key")
assert storage.retrieveTraceEntryForKey("test_key") == "test_value"
You create an instance of this class, you add an entry and you check if methods containsTraceEntry and retrieveTraceEntryForKey return expected values. As you can see it doesn't matter where we stored this trace entry - it matters that the class we have implemented behaves as expected. To make this test method even better you could add an assertion that checks if there is no trace entry for test_key before we actually insert it - this way we know that adding trace entry change internal state of the class. But what is nice in this approach is that as long as we don't break the contract, we can experiment and modify implementation of TraceEntriesStorage. Because what is most important - adding trace entries have to allow to retrieve them back from the object. How it gets stored, where it gets stored - it doesn't matter.
I hope you find this answer useful and it will help you in learning Groovy and designing a better programs. Happy hacking!

Answer 2

You need to combine adding the return statement to addTraceEntry() with assigning the returned value to a variable in testAddTraceEntry():
def traceability = addTraceEntry(key, value)