How are functions scoped within ExUnit describe blocks?

AFAIK, neither describe nor test define a new module scope (or class as you’d call it). So what you are trying to do will not work. What’s the problem with having functions with different names at the top scope in the same file?

There’s no problem with it; left to my own devices, I probably would have done just that.

I encountered this sort of pattern when I ran a generator for Phoenix for two models under the same context; not having much experience with the language, I simply thought this was a common pattern and tried to maintain that with the new functions I introduced.

To answer my own question, the function is not “scoped” to the describe, because as dimitarvp mentioned, describe does not define a new module scope.

The alias however, is scoped to the nearest block, and the describe is one such construct, so the alias is not “shared” between the two blocks.

Just trying to understand the fundamentals. I feel like this makes sense, but please feel free to correct me if I’m wrong!

@soullpoint There is a way to scope them if the functions are used in setups:

describe "test case A" do
    setup :build_user
    
    @describename elem(@ex_unit_describe, 1)
    def build_user(%{describe: @describename}) do
      [user: %{user_id: 1}]
    end
  end

  describe "test case B" do
    setup :build_user

    @describename elem(@ex_unit_describe, 1)
    def build_user(%{describe: @describename}) do
      [user: %{user_id: 2}]
    end
  end