Notes posted by aghyad

correct, but ..

stub_chain provides a very good replacement of long lines of nested stubs, but never forget it violates Law of Demeter; i.e. it indicates an increase of coupling in your classes and this is a bad thing because it means your objects now are making more unnecessary calls to other objects. for example:

def initialize(some_obj)
  @obj = some_obj
end

def foo
  @obj.x  # GOOD coupling - according to LoD you are allowed to call a method on your object
end

def bar
  @obj.x.y   # BAD coupling - can not call a method on a returned value of another method call even if the initial call is legal
end

How is this related to TDD and stubs?

• method foo test will have only one stub for a double of some_obj type

• method bar will have 2 stubs: the first is going to swallow the other one to produce the result (and then can be shortened using this stub_chain technique)

Always remember: if your tests are using stub_chains –> your code is smelly and possibly tightly coupled.