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Testing with f#
Testing with f#

Testing with f#: Deliver high-quality, bug-free applications by testing them with efficient and expressive functional programming

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Testing with f#

Chapter 2. Writing Testable Code with Functional Programming

There are three main aspects of writing code in a functional style in F# versus imperative style in a language such as C#:

  • No side effects leads to fewer bugs
  • Smaller isolated units are easier to test
  • Expressiveness makes code right the first time

This chapter will address the following bits about functional programming:

  • Purity
  • Expressiveness
  • Immutability
  • Patterns to help you write testable code

By reading this chapter, you will learn how to write high quality code that will become easy to test. This chapter sets the groundwork for how tests will be written in the following chapters.

Purely functional

What is a computer program?

The following image shows the basic working of a computer program:

Purely functional

An input computed by a program returns an output. This is a very simple concept but it becomes highly relevant for functional programming.

A former colleague told me that's all there is to it: data and code that operates on data. If you want to take it further, the code itself is also data, so a computer program is really just data operating on data.

What about web programming?

The following image shows the basic working of a web server:

Purely functional

It's really the same thing. You have a web request that the server operates on and returns a web response.

How does this apply to functional programming?

The following image shows the basic working of functional programming:

Purely functional

A pure function is very much a computer program. It has an input and output, but the computation of the output adhere to certain conditions:

  • The same output is always guaranteed for the same input
  • The evaluation of the output...

Immutability

The default behavior of F# when using the let keyword is an immutable value. The difference between this and a variable is that the value is not possible to change. With this, there are the following benefits:

  • It encourages a more declarative coding style
  • It discourages side effects
  • It enables parallel computation

The following is an example implementation of the String.Join function using a mutable state:

// F# implementation of String.Join
let join (separator : string) list = 
    // create a mutable state
    let mutable result = new System.Text.StringBuilder()
    let mutable hasValues = false
        
    // iterate over the incoming list
    for s in list do
        hasValues <- true
        result
            .Append(s.ToString())
            .Append(separator)
            |> ignore
            
    // if list hasValues remove last separator
    if hasValues then
        result.Remove(result.Length - separator.Length, separator.Length) |> ignore

    // get result...

Writing testable code

In the previous section we have been looking at basic functional structures that helps us write better programs. Now we're ready to move on to higher level constructs that let us organize our code functionally on a more abstract way.

Active patterns

Pattern matching is one of the killer features of F# that makes it a more attractive language than C# or Visual Basic. It could have been just a nice language feature for the built-in .NET types, but actually it is highly customizable and you can define your own patterns.

Here is how you can define your own active pattern:

// active pattern for sequences
let (|Empty|NotEmpty|) sequence =
    if Seq.isEmpty sequence then Empty
    else NotEmpty sequence

This enables us to use the pattern directly in a match expression:

// example on usage of active pattern
// join ["1"; "2"; "3"] -> "123"
let rec join (s : seq<string>) = 
    match s with
    | Empty -> ""
   ...

Expressiveness through functional programming

There is a very important distinction between programming language paradigms. Two kinds of programming styles stand against each other:

  • Imperative programming
  • Declarative programming

The imperative programming style has its origin in Fortran, and the declarative programming paradigm's roots can be followed back to Lisp. The following sections will compare the two styles and explain why we prefer one over the other in testing.

Imperative programming

Imperative programming has become the standard of programming methodology with the rise of languages such as BASIC, Pascal, C, and C#. It means describing to the computer how to calculate a result, in a way that you would describe how to make a cake:

// imperative programming
let double_imperative numbers =
    let doubled = System.Collections.Generic.List<int>()

    for number in numbers do
        let double = number * 2
        doubled.Add(double)

    doubled 

This code example will double...

Summary

Functional programming is very powerful as it leads to very terse programs with high-quality and low number of faults. This is because good functional code doesn't have any side effects—a place where most of the imperative object-oriented code has its bugs.

In this chapter, we've been looking at functional concepts that make it easier to write good code that doesn't cause side effects and has a low number of bugs, but also code that is easier to test.

The next chapter we'll reach into the toolset that exists for programs written in F# and what it takes to get started with functional testing.

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Description

If you are a developer who wants to test applications using F#, this is the book for you. Basic experience of testing and intermediate experience of functional programming in F# is expected.

Who is this book for?

If you are a developer who wants to test applications using F#, this is the book for you. Basic experience of testing and intermediate experience of functional programming in F# is expected.

What you will learn

  • Set up a test environment in your code base
  • Write unit tests, integration tests, and functional tests for F# applications
  • Leverage tools such as FsUnit, Foq, Canopy, and TickSpec to run tests both inside and outside your development environment
  • Maximize the productivity of your test code using the language features of F#
  • Extract dependencies to databases, web services, and other IO bound operations
  • Test your applications using executable specifications on a web browser
  • Discover the best practices for developing a sustainable test suite
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Publication date, Length, Edition, Language, ISBN-13
Publication date : Feb 20, 2015
Length: 286 pages
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Language : English
ISBN-13 : 9781784391232
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Table of Contents

11 Chapters
1. The Practice of Test Automation Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
2. Writing Testable Code with Functional Programming Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
3. Setting Up Your Test Environment Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
4. Unit Testing Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
5. Integration Testing Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
6. Functional Testing Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
7. The Controversy of Test Automation Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
8. Testing in an Agile Context Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
9. Test Smells Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
10. The Ten Commandments of Test Automation Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
Index Chevron down icon Chevron up icon

Customer reviews

Rating distribution
Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon Half star icon Empty star icon 3.7
(3 Ratings)
5 star 0%
4 star 66.7%
3 star 33.3%
2 star 0%
1 star 0%
Bohdan Szymanik May 26, 2015
Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon Empty star icon 4
Great book. It provides a good introduction to software testing in general - useful as I had to recently step in and lead a group of end user testers for a few months - and a great introduction to automated software testing using F# and the readily available test frameworks ie NUnit, xUnit and MSTest, . Don't forget to get the bonus chapter on testing with FsCheck. btw - it's also a great intro to F# programming in general. Really good book.
Amazon Verified review Amazon
Maciek May 26, 2015
Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon Empty star icon 4
I believe this is a very interesting book for all people who want to start their adventure with testing using F# and don't know how to do that. The book starts with describing testing as an activity, gradually introducing F# and showing how to configure test environment. It goes through different types of tests: unit, integration and functional as well as it points out test smells and commandments of test automation. At the beginning the book starts with basics going into more details as you go.
Amazon Verified review Amazon
bookworm Feb 04, 2016
Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon Empty star icon Empty star icon 3
This book gives an overview of how to do testing with F# using various testing frameworks. Then gives an overview of various testing methodologies and strategies. This is occasionally interspersed with short rants and "war stories" by the author.Given the price it is ok but I expected more F#, more depth, and less "fluff".
Amazon Verified review Amazon
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