Test-Driven Development in Python - python-3.x

Question

How do i write a test, to Test for the default behavior (of a method ) of printing a range that we give it? Below is my attempt. Pasted code from my implementation file and the test case file.
`class FizzBuzzService:
def print_number(self, num):
for i in range(num):
print(i, end=' ')
import unittest
from app.logic import FizzBuzzService
class FizzBuzzServiceTestCases(unittest.TestCase):
def setUp(self):
"""
Create an instance of fizz_buzz_service
"""
self.fizzbuzz = FizzBuzzService()
def test_it_prints_a_number(self):
"""
Test for the default behavior of printing the range that we give
fizz_buzz_service
"""
number_range = range(10)
self.assertEqual(self.fizzbuzz.print_number(10), print(*number_range))

Answer 1

For me at least TDD is about finding a good design as much as it's about testing. As you've seen, testing for things like output is hard.
printing like this is known as a side effect - put simply it's doing something not based solely on the input parameter to the method. My solution would be to make print_number less side effecty, then test it like that. If you need to print it you can write another function higher up that prints, the output of print_number, but contains no meaningful logic other than that, which doesn't really need testing. Here's an example with your code changed to not have a side effect (it's one of several possible alternatives)
class FizzBuzzService:
def print_number(self, num):
for i in range(num):
yield i
import unittest
class FizzBuzzServiceTestCases(unittest.TestCase):
def setUp(self):
"""
Create an instance of fizz_buzz_service
"""
self.fizzbuzz = FizzBuzzService()
def test_it_prints_a_number(self):
"""
Test for the default behavior of printing the range that we give
fizz_buzz_service
"""
number_range = range(10)
output = []
for x in self.fizzbuzz.print_number(10):
output.append(x)
self.assertEqual(range(10), output)

Answer 2

You need to capture standard outputs in your tests to do that -
import sys
import cStringIO
def test_it_prints_a_number(self):
inital_stdout = sys.stdout
sys.stdout = cStringIO()
self.fizzbuzz.print_number(10)
value = sys.stdout.getvalue()
self.assertEqual(value, str(range(10)))
As you can see it's really messy, thus I'd highly recommend against it. Tests written on the based on string contents, especially standard outputs are utterly fragile. Besides the whole point of TDD is to write well-designed isolated code that is easily testable. If your code is difficult to test, than it is a sure shot indication that there's a problem in your design.
How about you divide your code into two parts, one that produce the numbers and need to be tested and other that just print it.
def get_numbers(self, num):
return range(num)
def print_number(self, num):
print(get_numbers)
# Now you can easily test get_numbers method.
Now if you really want to test printing functionality, then the better way would be use mocking.