Learn R Programming

⚠️There's a newer version (1.4.22) of this package.Take me there.

unitizeR - Interactive R Unit Tests

TL;DR

unitizer simplifies creating, reviewing, and debugging unit tests in R. To install:

install.packages('unitizer')

Please keep in mind this is an experimental framework that has been thoroughly tested by one person.

unitizer bakes in a lot of contextual help so you can get started without reading all the documentation. Try the demo to get an idea:

library(unitizer)
demo(unitizer)

Or check out the screencast to see unitizer in action.

Why Another Testing Framework?

Automated Test Formalization

Are you tired of the deparse/dput then copy-paste R objects into test file dance, or do you use testthat::expect_equal_to_reference a lot?

With unitizer you review function output at an interactive prompt as you would with informal tests. You then store the value, conditions (e.g. warnings, etc.), and environment for use as the reference values in formal tests, all with a single keystroke.

Streamlined Debugging

Do you wish the nature of a test failure was more immediately obvious?

When tests fail, you are shown a proper diff so you can clearly identify how the test failed:

Do you wish that you could start debugging your failed tests without additional set-up work?

unitizer drops you in the test environment so you can debug why the test failed without further ado:

Fast Test Updates

Do you avoid improvements to your functions because that would require painstakingly updating many tests?

The diffs for the failed tests let you immediately confirm only what you intended changed. Then you can update each test with a single keystroke.

Usage

unitizer stores R expressions and the result of evaluating them so that it can detect code regressions. This is akin to saving test output to a .Rout.save file as documented in Writing R Extensions, except that we're storing the actual R objects and it is much easier to review them.

To use unitizer:

  • Write test expressions as you would when informally testing code on the command line, and save them to a file (e.g. "my_file_name.R")
  • Run unitize("my_file_name.R") and follow the prompts
  • Continue developing your package
  • Re-run unitize("my_file_name.R"); if any tests fail you will be able to review and debug them in an interactive prompt

unitizer can run in a non-interactive mode for use with R CMD check.

Documentation

Related Packages

Acknowledgments

Thank you to:

  • R Core for developing and maintaining such a wonderfully language.
  • CRAN maintainers, for patiently shepherding packages onto CRAN and maintaining the repository, and Uwe Ligges in particular for maintaining Winbuilder.
  • Hadley Wickham for testthat from which we borrow many concepts and use for internal tests, for devtools, and for his outstanding contributions to the R universe.
  • Gábor Csárdi for crayon through which we can add a new dimension to the R experience.
  • Jim Hester because covr rocks.
  • Dirk Eddelbuettel and Carl Boettiger for the rocker project, and Gábor Csárdi and the R-consortium for Rhub, without which testing bugs on R-devel and other platforms would be a nightmare.
  • Yihui Xie for knitr and J.J. Allaire etal for rmarkdown, and by extension John MacFarlane for pandoc.
  • Stefan M. Bache for the idea of having a function for testing objects directly (originally vetr only worked with function arguments), which I took from ensurer.
  • Hadley Wickham for devtools, and for pointing me to Stefan M. Bache's ensurer package.
  • @kohler for gifsicle and the ffmpeg team for ffmpeg.
  • All open source developers out there that make their work freely available for others to use.
  • Github, Travis-CI, Codecov, Vagrant, Docker, Ubuntu, Brew for providing infrastructure that greatly simplifies open source development.
  • Free Software Foundation for developing the GPL license and promotion of the free software movement.

About the Author

Brodie Gaslam is a hobbyist programmer based in the US East Coast.

Copy Link

Version

Install

install.packages('unitizer')

Monthly Downloads

1,280

Version

1.4.3

License

GPL (>= 2)

Issues

Pull Requests

Stars

Forks

Maintainer

Brodie Gaslam

Last Published

June 8th, 2017

Functions in unitizer (1.4.3)

all.equal.condition

Compare Conditions
all_eq

Like all.equal but Returns Empty String If Not all.equal
unitizer_demo

Demo Details and Helper Functions
desc

One Line Description of Object
$,unitizerItemTestsErrorsDiffs-method

Subsetting Methods for unitizerItemTestsErrorsDiffs objects
filename_to_storeid

Create a Store ID from a Test File Name
mock_item

Generates a Dummy Item For Use in Examples
nextItem,unitizerList-method

flattenUntz

Reduce S4 objects Into Lists
getFun

Utility Function
set_unitizer

Set and Retrieve Store Contents
show,unitizerChanges-method

Print Out A Summary Of the Changes
as.character,unitizerChanges-method

Print Out A Summary Of the Changes
as.character.bullet

Produce Character Vector Representation of Bullet Lists
editCalls

Edit Calls In Unitizer
$.unitizerItem

Retrieve Test Contents From Test Item
as.expression,unitizerList-method

Coerce to expression by returning items coerced to expressions
cap_first

Captalizes or Decapitalizes First Letter
testthat_transcribe_file

Transcribes a testtaht File Into unitizer Format
testthat_translate_file

Convert a testthat Test File to a unitizer
sizeUntz

Utility To Examine Object Size
testFuns

Store Functions for New vs. Reference Test Comparisons
unitizerTests-class

Collections of Calls For Testing
unitizer_ls

An `ls` Like Function
repair_environments

Repair Environment Chains
run_ls

Worker function to actually execute the `ls` work
show.conditionList

Prints A list of Conditions
sizeRDS

Measure object size as an RDS
capture_output

Capture Both StdOut and StdErr
conditionList

Contains A List of Conditions
infer_unitizer_location

Infers Possible Unitizer Path From Context
invalidateLs

Clears ls Info and Marks as Invalid
length,unitizerChanges-method

Return Sum of Total Changes
length,unitizerSection-method

Compute Length of a unitizerSection-class
show,unitizerItemTestsErrorsDiff-method

Show Method for unitizerItemTestsErrorsDiff objects
unitizer_prompt

Interactively Retrieve User Input
unitizer_result

Return Values and Related Methods for unitize Functions
show,unitizerDummy-method

Documentation Block for Internal S4 Methods
unitizer_sect

Define a unitizer Section
unitizerSection-class

Contains Representation For a Section of Tests
unitizerState

Tests and Session State
show,unitizerItemTestsErrorsDiffs-method

Show Method for unitizerItemTestsErrorsDiffs objects
unitizerList

S4 Object To Implement Base List Methods
valid_names

Make Valid Names
unitizerGlobalBase-class

Structures For Tracking Global Options
healEnvs

Fix Environment Ancestries
options_zero

Set Options to Initial Zero State
print.bullet

Print Methods for UL and OL objects
unitizerChanges-class

Summary of Changes
text_wrap

Text Wrapping Utilities
unitize

Unitize an R Test Script
unitizer

unitizer
unitizer.opts

Unitizer Options
validate_pre_post

Helper function for validations