consensus on using separate *_test packages

[Katherine Cox-Buday]

Exactly what Roger said.

I think this is nicely paired with the ongoing discussion of tests. If we
want the code-base to have a nice mix of unit and functional/integration
tests, then I feel that necessitates a mixture of "package foo" and "import
package foo_test". If you're not trying to stick to the public API (unit
tests), then not having access to the non-public API without manually
exporting things just leads to a lot of code-churn and tests which are more
difficult to understand.

-
Katherine

On Fri, Sep 12, 2014 at 11:49 AM, roger peppe <rogpeppe at gmail.com> wrote:

> On 12 September 2014 16:55, Eric Snow <eric.snow at canonical.com> wrote:
> > In Go we put tests in *_test.go files that are only built when
> > testing.  There are two conventions for what package to declare in
> > those files (relative to the corresponding non-test package):
> > "<package>" and "<package>_test".  In our code we have a mix of both.
> > This can be confusing.  We should come to a consensus on which to use
> > and stick with it, both for new code and when given the opportunity
> > while refactoring.  (As usual, a whole-sale refactor wouldn't be a
> > good idea).
> >
> > This came up on IRC a couple months back. [1]  At the time I referred
> > to a post from Gustavo on golang-nuts where he stated a preference for
> > using a separate package for *_test.go files. [2]  Also note that
> > there are some cases where test files must be in a separate package
> > (e.g. to break circular imports).  So unless we always use separate
> > test packages, we will almost certainly end up with a mix (which is
> > exactly the issue at hand!).
> >
> > From my perspective, I agree with Gustavo that using a separate _test
> > package is a good idea.  So I would favor us being consistent in doing
> > that. :)
>
> I think there's a place for both approaches. All else being equal, I
> prefer to have
> tests in an external package, testing using the public API and using as few
> internal details as possible.
>
> But sometimes it's good to write tests for functions that are intimately
> connected to the internals of a package, and in that case I think it's
> better to write internal tests (with the _test.go file in the same package)
> rather than jumping through hoops to try to make them external.
>
>   cheers,
>     rog.
>
> >
> > -eric
> >
> > [1] http://irclogs.ubuntu.com/2014/07/22/%23juju-dev.html#t15:36
> > [2]
> https://groups.google.com/forum/#!msg/Golang-nuts/dkk0X1tIs6k/nO3CKFqbIxYJ
> >
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