CSC/ECE 517 Spring 2022 - E2200: Testing advice controller
About Expertiza
Expertiza is a software which benefits both instructors and students by providing platform for various types of submissions and providing reusable objects for peer review. Expertiza is an open-source project developed on Ruby on Rails framework. In Expertiza an instructors can not only create and customize new or existing assignments, but he/she can also create a list of topics and subject in which the students can sign up. Along with that, Students can form their teams and groups to work with on various projects and assignments. Students can also peer-review other students' submissions. This enables students to work together to improve each other’s learning experiences by providing feedbacks.
Description about project
This project is a description of Expertiza OSS project E2200 which is adding unit tests for advice_controller.rb.
The project focusses on refactoring and testing each aspect of advice_controller by writing comprehensive test cases using rspec. advice_controller first checks whether current user has TA privileges or not by implementing action_allowed? method. Secondly it sets the number of advices based on score and sort it in descending order. Then it checks four conditions for the advices.
1. If number of advices is not equal to given advices
2. If the sorted advices is empty
3. If first advice score of sorted advices is NOT equal to max score
4. If last advice score of sorted advices is NOT equal to min score
If any of the above condition are True, the edit_advice method calls adjust_advice_size of the QuestionnaireHelper class which adjust the advice sizes accordingly.
In the end, save_advice method is called which updates and saves the changes in the advices and displays the success/failure message.
Files Involved:
- advice_controller.rb
- advice_controller_spec.rb
Running Tests:
- rspec spec/controllers/advice_controller_spec.rb
Refactoring advice_controller
We understood the functionality of advice_controller and found a number of bugs in the code. So first we refactored the code by solving out the bugs and verifying it with the mentor. The bugs we found are enlisted below.
1. Change naming convention of num_questions to num_advices. 2. Adding 1 to num_advices 3. Max should be compared with First element of sorted advice 4. Min should be compared with Last element of sorted advice
Test Plan
Initially we ran the original test cases but it only covered just a part of the methods in controllers. That is, it just covered the action_allowed part of out controller. Hence, we then wrote the tests for covering other methods of our controller. Our first method, invalid_advice_status basically checks for 4 conditions for number of advices. So we wrote 5 tests considering result of each condition. Then we wrote 2 tests for save_advice method which checks whether advices are successfully saved or not.
We created the test cases using mocking of objects (factory and stub objects).
advice_controller Methods
The code of the controller can be found here. The methods are:
- action_allowed?
- invalid_advice_status
- edit_advice
- save_advice
Test Frame for advice_controller
We write test cases in order to test the functional logic for the controllers.
- action_allowed? – action_allowed? is the first method that is called when user tries to access the advice_controllers. It checks whether the current user has TA privileges or not.
Code Snippet:
describe '#action_allowed?' do context 'when the role of current user is Super-Admin' do it 'allows certain action' do stub_current_user(super_admin, super_admin.role.name, super_admin.role) expect(controller.send(:action_allowed?)).to be_truthy end end context 'when the role of current user is Instructor' do it 'allows certain action' do stub_current_user(instructor1, instructor1.role.name, instructor1.role) expect(controller.send(:action_allowed?)).to be_truthy end end context 'when the role of current user is Student' do it 'refuses certain action' do stub_current_user(student1, student1.role.name, student1.role) expect(controller.send(:action_allowed?)).to be_falsey end end end
2. invalid_advice_status –
This method is called to check the 4 conditions in which the advice size has to be adjusted. If this function return true, only then we have to adjust the advice size.
Code Snippet:
describe '#invalid_advice_status' do
context "when invalid_advice_status is called with question advice score > max score of questionnaire" do
#max score of advice = 3 (!=2)
let(:questionnaire) do
build(:questionnaire, id: 1, min_question_score: 1,
questions: [build(:question, id: 1, weight: 2, question_advices: [build(:question_advice, id:1, score: 1, question_id: 1, advice: "Advice1"), build(:question_advice, id:2, score: 3, question_id: 1, advice: "Advice2")])], max_question_score: 2)
end
it "invalid_advice_status returns true when called with incorrect maximum score for a question advice" do
sorted_advice = questionnaire.questions[0].question_advices.sort_by { |x| x.score }.reverse
num_advices = questionnaire.max_question_score - questionnaire.min_question_score + 1
temp = AdviceController.new
temp.instance_variable_set(:@questionnaire,questionnaire)
expect(temp.invalid_advice_status(sorted_advice,num_advices,questionnaire.questions[0])).to eq(true)
end
end
context "when invalid_advice_status is called with question advice score < min score of questionnaire" do
#min score of advice = 0 (!=1)
let(:questionnaire) do
build(:questionnaire, id: 1, min_question_score: 1,
questions: [build(:question, id: 1, weight: 2, question_advices: [build(:question_advice, id:1, score: 0, question_id: 1, advice: "Advice1"), build(:question_advice, id:2, score: 2, question_id: 1, advice: "Advice2")])], max_question_score: 2)
end
it "invalid_advice_status returns true when called with incorrect minimum score for a question advice" do
sorted_advice = questionnaire.questions[0].question_advices.sort_by { |x| x.score }.reverse
num_advices = questionnaire.max_question_score - questionnaire.min_question_score + 1
temp = AdviceController.new
temp.instance_variable_set(:@questionnaire,questionnaire)
expect(temp.invalid_advice_status(sorted_advice,num_advices,questionnaire.questions[0])).to eq(true)
end
end
context "when invalid_advice_status is called with number of advices > (max-min) score of questionnaire" do
#number of advices > 2
let(:questionnaire) do
build(:questionnaire, id: 1, min_question_score: 1,
questions: [build(:question, id: 1, weight: 2, question_advices: [build(:question_advice, id:1, score: 1, question_id: 1, advice: "Advice1"), build(:question_advice, id:2, score: 2, question_id: 1, advice: "Advice2"), build(:question_advice, id:3, score: 2, question_id: 1, advice: "Advice3")])], max_question_score: 2)
end
it "invalid_advice_status returns true when called with incorrect number of question advices" do
sorted_advice = questionnaire.questions[0].question_advices.sort_by { |x| x.score }.reverse
num_advices = questionnaire.max_question_score - questionnaire.min_question_score + 1
temp = AdviceController.new
temp.instance_variable_set(:@questionnaire,questionnaire)
expect(temp.invalid_advice_status(sorted_advice,num_advices,questionnaire.questions[0])).to eq(true)
end
end
context "when invalid_advice_status is called with no advices for a question in questionnaire" do
# 0 advices - empty list scenario
let(:questionnaire) do
build(:questionnaire, id: 1, min_question_score: 1,
questions: [build(:question, id: 1, weight: 2, question_advices: [])], max_question_score: 2)
end
it "invalid_advice_status returns true when called with an empty advice list " do
sorted_advice = questionnaire.questions[0].question_advices.sort_by { |x| x.score }.reverse
num_advices = questionnaire.max_question_score - questionnaire.min_question_score + 1
temp = AdviceController.new
temp.instance_variable_set(:@questionnaire,questionnaire)
expect(temp.invalid_advice_status(sorted_advice,num_advices,questionnaire.questions[0])).to eq(true)
end
end
context "when invalid_advice_status is called with all conditions satisfied" do
# all perfect
let(:questionnaire) do
build(:questionnaire, id: 1, min_question_score: 1,
questions: [build(:question, id: 1, weight: 2, question_advices: [build(:question_advice, id:1, score: 1, question_id: 1, advice: "Advice1"), build(:question_advice, id:2, score: 2, question_id: 1, advice: "Advice2")])], max_question_score: 2)
end
it "invalid_advice_status returns false when called with all correct pre-conditions " do
sorted_advice = questionnaire.questions[0].question_advices.sort_by { |x| x.score }.reverse
num_advices = questionnaire.max_question_score - questionnaire.min_question_score + 1
temp = AdviceController.new
temp.instance_variable_set(:@questionnaire,questionnaire)
expect(temp.invalid_advice_status(sorted_advice,num_advices,questionnaire.questions[0])).to eq(false)
end
end
end
3. edit_advice –
Test for this methods includes whether this method redirects correctly when advice size is to be adjusted. When invalid_advice_status return true, edit_advice should call QuestionnaireHelper adjust_advice_size method and redirect to itself.
Code Snippet:
describe '#edit_advice' do
context "when edit_advice is called and invalid_advice_status evaluates to true" do
# edit advice called
let(:questionnaire) do
build(:questionnaire, id: 1, min_question_score: 1,
questions: [build(:question, id: 1, weight: 2, question_advices: [build(:question_advice, id:1, score: 1, question_id: 1, advice: "Advice1"), build(:question_advice, id:2, score: 2, question_id: 1, advice: "Advice2")])], max_question_score: 2)
end
it "edit advice redirects correctly when called" do
allow(Questionnaire).to receive(:find).with('1').and_return(questionnaire)
params = {id: 1}
session = {user: instructor1}
get :edit_advice, params, session
expect(response).to render_template(:edit_advice)
end
end
end
4. save_advice –
This method saves the advices for a particular questionnaire. It updates the advice corresponding to particular key. The tests for this method includes whether it saves the advice successfully or not.
Code Snippet:
describe '#save_advice' do
context "when save_advice is called" do
let(:questionnaire) do
build(:questionnaire, id: 1, min_question_score: 1,
questions: [build(:question, id: 1, weight: 2, question_advices: [build(:question_advice, id:1, score: 1, question_id: 1, advice: "Advice1"), build(:question_advice, id:2, score: 3, question_id: 1, advice: "Advice2")])], max_question_score: 2)
end
it "saves advice successfully" do
allow(Questionnaire).to receive(:find).with('1').and_return(questionnaire)
allow(QuestionAdvice).to receive(:update).with('1',{:advice => "Hello"}).and_return("Ok")
params = {advice: {"1" => {:advice => "Hello"}}, id: 1}
session = {user: instructor1}
get :save_advice, params, session
expect(flash[:notice]).to eq('The advice was successfully saved!')
expect(response).to redirect_to('/advice/edit_advice/1')
end
it "does not save the advice" do
allow(Questionnaire).to receive(:find).with('1').and_return(questionnaire)
allow(QuestionAdvice).to receive(:update).with(any_args).and_return("Ok")
params = {id: 1}
session = {user: instructor1}
get :save_advice, params, session
expect(flash[:notice]).not_to eq('The advice was successfully saved!')
expect(response).to redirect_to('/advice/edit_advice/1')
end
end
end
Results
The total coverage of the test cases for advice_controller_spec.rb is xxx%. This meets our minimum coverage requirement.
- Related Links:
- Conclusion:
There were 4 modules in total in the advice_controller for which we wrote the unit tests following the behavior driven approach. We haven’t considered all the edge cases for now and hence there is always a scope to further improve the testing coverage to reach 100%.