Hi all,
I need help on how to not execute a function in test environment.
I have a function which is a background supervised task which executes everytime an object is inserted/updated, because each time update/insertion I need to configure new config string. In test I rely on database, because I need to verify all the updates and insertions are valid.
The problem is after a few running tests, the database is blocked or the process is held back and already started, and the next test cannot checkout the repo.
So I need that background function just return nil when running test.
Currently I have solved it with if Mix.env != :test, do: function_call(), but does not seem right.
Does somebody have any experience with these kind of problem ?
As usual, the right answer depends on the actual circumstances, expected lifetime of the codebase, who is likely to work on it in the future, whether the correct execution of the background task is important enough that it warrants testing.
Here are a couple of other approaches I can think of to disable the code. The first is a very minor change to your approach that may make it more readable to someone in the future.
Use a config option to enable or disable the function call. For example, in config\dev.exs, have a line along the lines of config :my_app, enable_background_thing: true and in config\test.exs have config :my_app, enable_background_thing: false. Then your if Mix.env != :test, do: function_call() approach would be replaced with if Application.get_env(:my_app, : enable_background_thing), do: function_call()
The intent is clearer than your current approach I think.
Use some kind of dependency injection to inject a background processing module which is set up in the config for each environment. e.g.
defmodule TestBackgroundDoer do
def do_the_thing() do
IO.inspect("We just pretended the thing was done")
end
end
defmodule ActualBackgroundDoer do
def do_the_thing() do
whatever()
and_the_other_thing()
end
end
defmodule BackgroundDoer do
@doc """
This is what's called every time object inserted/updated
"""
def do_the_thing() do
doer_implementation = App.get_env(:my_app, : doer_implementation)
doer_implementation.do_the_thing()
end
end
#dev.exs & prod.exs
config :my_app, doer_implementation: ActualBackgroundDoer
#test.exs
config :my_app, doer_implementation: TestBackgroundDoer
This is probably overkill, but if your background task is is actually multiple for different situations, it is probably better to have a more structured way to mock it out like this so you can check that the right
function is called in the right situation in your tests.
