CSC/ECE 517 Spring 2013/OSS E608

Write-up of This Topic.

E608. Refactoring and Testing - Course Related Classes

Classes Involved:

• models/course.rb (76 lines)
• models/course_participant.rb (94 lines)
• models/course_team.rb (116 lines)
• models/course_node.rb (95 lines)

What it does: Involves creation and management of courses in Expertiza

What needs to be done:

• It is not clear what a method named 'create_node' is doing in the 'course' class. Refactor by renaming this method appropriately.
• In the course_team class the import method seems to be doing too many things. See if this method can be broken down into smaller methods with specific functionality.
• The 'get' method in course_node.rb appears to be doing a lot. Refactor this method by breaking it up into smaller methods.
• Look for any unused methods or variables in these files.
• Also apply other refactorings such as Rename variable, Rename method to give the variables and methods more meaningful names.
• Write unit tests for all the methods in each of the listed model classes.

Changes for models/course.rb

The following changes were made:

• Renamed create_node method to create_course_node to accurately reflect the functionality of the method.
• Added the line "has_many :assigments, :dependent => :destroy" to allow CourseTest.test_destroy unit test to pass.

Changes for models/course_node.rb

• models/course_node.rb
  • The "get" method was improved.
    • Added "get_courses_managed_by_user" method to hold logic extracted from the "get"method.
    • Added "get_course_query_conditions" method to hold logic extracted from the "get" method.
    • Modified any checks on if the user is a teaching assistant to use polymorphism to make the determination.
    • Removed the initial conditional for setting the "conditions" value since the remaining conditions was overwriting the value regardless of how the initial conditional was evaluated.
    • Renaming the "get" method was considered; however, the name of the method is necessary for polymorphism reasons related to Assignment nodes. As such, a comment was added to explain why the method name should remain.
    • The "sortorder" parameter is given a default value of "ASC" for ascending. This allowed for a related conditional to be removed from the method.
    • The "sortvar" parameter is given a default value of "name" for sorting by course name. This allowed for a related conditional to be removed from the method.
  • Renaming the "get_children" method was considered; however, the name of the method is necessary for polymorphism reasons related to Assignment Nodes. As such, a comment was added to explain why the method name should remain.
  • The "get_survey_distribution_id" method was removed after finding it to be dead code.
• models/ta.rb
  • Added "is_teaching_assistant?" method to override the inherited method from the User model. This supported usage of polymorphism to determine if the user is a teaching assistant.
• models/user.rb
  • Added "is_teaching_assistant?" method to enable usage of polymorphism to determine if the user is a teaching assistant.

List of New Unit Tests and Testcases

The following lists shows new unit files and/or new testcases:

• test/unit/course_node_test.rb (new test file)
  • test_get_children_with_show_true_and_non_TA_and_ascending_order_by_name
  • test_get_children_with_show_true_and_non_TA_and_descending_order_by_name
  • test_get_children_with_show_true_and_TA_and_ascending_order_by_name
  • test_get_children_with_show_true_and_TA_and_descending_order_by_name
  • test_get_children_with_show_false_and_non_TA_and_ascending_order_by_name
  • test_get_children_with_show_false_and_non_TA_and_descending_order_by_name
  • test_get_children_with_show_false_and_TA_and_ascending_order_by_name
  • test_get_children_with_show_false_and_TA_and_descending_order_by_name
  • test_get_children_with_show_false_and_non_TA_and_nil_order_by_nil
  • test_get_name
  • test_get_directory
  • test_get_creation_date
  • test_get_modified_date
  • test_get_teams
• test/unit/course_test.rb (previously existing test file)
  • test_get_teams
  • test_get_path
  • test_get_participants
  • test_get_participant
  • test_add_participant
  • test_copy_participants
  • test_create_course_node

List of Modified Unit Tests

The following unit test files and/or testcases were modified:

• test/unit/course_test.rb
  • The line "fixtures :courses" was changed to "fixtures :courses,:teams,:users,:participants,:assignments,:nodes,:tree_folders".