In Flash, creating unit tests for GUI components is problematic. I generally write unit tests for controllers, presentation models, mediators (etc) -- ie: the non GUI classes that contain business logic.
Writing tests for GUI objects becomes a losing proposition, for many reasons:
- the view's logic tends to need to be triggered by user interaction
- the view may depend on low level Flash API's (NetStream, Camera, etc) that are difficult to simulate/mock in tests)
- running tests that have GUI elements (things that use the stage or that you add to the stage) is not possible when running tests automatically (ie: kicked off by your continuous integration or build system)
- tests tend to run slower
I generally avoid writing unit tests for components like a date stepper, which we compose together to form the greater "view". I typically use a presentation model, and if the component has particular business logic that should be tested, the tests are written for the non-gui presentation model class (or controller, or mediator, or whatever).
public class MyViewPM
{
// write a unit test for this method
public function onSubmitButtonClick():void
{
}
}
public class MyView extends Sprite
{
// this is injected by your MVC framework
// or set when the the view is created, or added to stage, etc.
public var pm:MyViewPM;
public function MyView()
{
submitButton.addEventListener(MouseEvent.Click, onMouseClick);
}
private function onMouseClick(event:Event):void
{
pm.onSubmitButtonClick();
}
}
