At

At is a small library provides an at method for all Objects which allows you to access instance variables on an object as if they were accessors for testing purposes, usually within test setups and teardowns.

Install

Bundler: gem 'at' in group :test

RubyGems: gem install at

Usage

TL;DR

Basically, at directly translates this:

value = user.instance_eval { @name }
user.instance_eval { @name = "#{value}!" }

into this:

value = user.at.name
user.at.name = "#{value}!"

Use Case

lib/user.rb

class User

  def initialize(first_name=nil, last_name=nil)
    @first_name, @last_name = first_name, last_name
  end

  def full_name
    [@first_name, @last_name].compact.join(" ")
  end

end

spec/spec_helper.rb

require 'user'
require 'at/setup'

spec/user_spec.rb

describe User do

  describe '#full_name' do

    before :all do
      subject.at.first_name = 'John'
      subject.at.last_name = 'Doe'
    end

    it 'should output the full name correctly' do
      subject.full_name.should == 'John Doe'
    end

  end

end

Check out the specs for a better usage example.

FAQ

Why is this named "At"?

Because the at symbol (@) is how an instance variable is declared in Ruby!

What if my class defines an at instance method?

At is included on the Object class, so when your class defines the at instance method, you are actually overwriting the At#at method. Luckily, the at method is just an alias of the _at method, which you can use instead:

describe Event do

  describe "#at" do

    let(:event_at) { DateTime.now }

    before(:all) { subject._at.at = event_at }

    it 'should return the DateTime the Event is happening' do
      subject.at.should == event_at
    end

  end

end

How can I include the at and _at methods on a single object?

Include At to the object's class:

lib/user.rb

class User

  def initialize(first_name=nil, last_name=nil)
    @first_name, @last_name = first_name, last_name
  end

  def full_name
    [@first_name, @last_name].compact.join(" ")
  end

end

spec/spec_helper.rb

require 'user'
require 'at'

class User
  include At
end

spec/user_spec.rb

describe User do

  describe '#full_name' do

    before :all do
      subject.at.first_name = 'John'
      subject.at.last_name = 'Doe'
    end

    it 'should output the full name correctly' do
      subject.full_name.should == 'John Doe'
    end

  end

end

How can I include the at method outside of a test environment?

Same premise as the above answer:

require 'at'

class User

  include At

  def initialize(first_name=nil, last_name=nil)
    @first_name, @last_name = first_name, last_name
  end

  def full_name
    [@first_name, @last_name].compact.join(" ")
  end

end

How can I use instance variable delegation without the at method?

Simply use At::InstanceVariableDelegator:

require 'at/instance_variable_delegator'

class Application

  class Config
    attr_reader :hostname, :port
  end

  attr_reader :config

  def initialize(&block)
    @config = Config.new

    configure(&block) if block_given?
  end

  def configure(&block)
    raise ArgumentError, 'block must be supplied' unless block_given?
    delegator = At::InstanceVariableDelegator.new(@config)

    block.call(delegator)
  end

end

# Usage:
app = Application.new
app.configure do |c|
  c.hostname = 'example.com'
  c.port = 8080
end

p app.config.hostname # => 'example.com'
p app.config.port     # => 8080

Contributing

• Check out the latest master to make sure the feature hasn't been implemented or the bug hasn't been fixed yet
• Check out the issue tracker to make sure someone already hasn't requested it and/or contributed it
• Fork the project
• Start a feature/bugfix branch
• Commit and push until you are happy with your contribution
• Make sure to add tests for it. This is important so I don't break it in a future version unintentionally.
• Please try not to mess with the Rakefile, version, or history. If you want to have your own version, or is otherwise necessary, that is fine, but please isolate to its own commit so I can cherry-pick around it.

Copyright

Copyright © 2012-2013 Ryan Scott Lewis ryan@rynet.us.

The MIT License (MIT) - See LICENSE for further details.