As our Rete implementation gets more complicated we need to find easier and more maintainable ways to test our node implementations. Currently we have unit tests for all our nodes done in pure java, setting these up is laborious and because of the amount of java code involved makes it hard to read the intention. I’m finding that we are relying more on higher level integration tests, which is lazy and not as good as catching the problems earlier and in a more isolated manner. Take for example the JoinNode, this is the sample code necessary to setup a node for testing and apply some assertion tests:
public void setUp() {
// create mock objects
constraint = mockery.mock( BetaNodeFieldConstraint.class );
final ContextEntry c = mockery.mock( ContextEntry.class );
// set mock objects expectations
mockery.checking( new Expectations() {
{
// allowed calls and return values
allowing( constraint ).createContextEntry();
will( returnValue( c ) );
allowing( c ).updateFromFactHandle( with( any( InternalWorkingMemory.class ) ),
with( any( InternalFactHandle.class ) ) );
allowing( c ).updateFromTuple( with( any( InternalWorkingMemory.class ) ),
with( any( LeftTuple.class ) ) );
allowing( c ).resetTuple();
allowing( c ).resetFactHandle();
}
} );
this.rule = new Rule( "test-rule" );
this.context = new PropagationContextImpl( 0,
PropagationContext.ASSERTION,
null,
null,
null );
this.workingMemory = new ReteooWorkingMemory( 1,
(ReteooRuleBase) RuleBaseFactory.newRuleBase() );
this.tupleSource = new MockTupleSource( 4 );
this.objectSource = new MockObjectSource( 4 );
this.sink = new MockLeftTupleSink();
final RuleBaseConfiguration configuration = new RuleBaseConfiguration();
ReteooRuleBase ruleBase = (ReteooRuleBase) RuleBaseFactory.newRuleBase();
BuildContext buildContext = new BuildContext( ruleBase,
ruleBase.getReteooBuilder().getIdGenerator() );
this.node = new JoinNode( 15,
this.tupleSource,
this.objectSource,
new DefaultBetaConstraints( new BetaNodeFieldConstraint[]{this.constraint},
configuration ),
Behavior.EMPTY_BEHAVIOR_LIST,
buildContext );
this.node.addTupleSink( this.sink );
this.memory = (BetaMemory) this.workingMemory.getNodeMemory( this.node );
// check memories are empty
assertEquals( 0,
this.memory.getLeftTupleMemory().size() );
assertEquals( 0,
this.memory.getRightTupleMemory().size() );
}
public void testRetractTuple() throws Exception {
// set mock objects expectations
mockery.checking( new Expectations() {
{
// allowed calls and return values
allowing( constraint ).isAllowedCachedLeft( with( any( ContextEntry.class ) ),
with( any( InternalFactHandle.class ) ) );
will( returnValue( true ) );
allowing( constraint ).isAllowedCachedRight( with( any( LeftTuple.class ) ),
with( any( ContextEntry.class ) ) );
will( returnValue( true ) );
}
} );
// setup 2 tuples 3 fact handles
final DefaultFactHandle f0 = (DefaultFactHandle) this.workingMemory.insert( "test0" );
this.node.assertObject( f0,
this.context,
this.workingMemory );
final DefaultFactHandle f1 = (DefaultFactHandle) this.workingMemory.insert( "test1" );
final LeftTuple tuple1 = new LeftTuple( f1,
this.node,
true );
this.node.assertLeftTuple( tuple1,
this.context,
this.workingMemory );
final DefaultFactHandle f2 = (DefaultFactHandle) this.workingMemory.insert( "test2" );
final LeftTuple tuple2 = new LeftTuple( f2,
this.node,
true );
this.node.assertLeftTuple( tuple2,
this.context,
this.workingMemory );
final DefaultFactHandle f3 = (DefaultFactHandle) this.workingMemory.insert( "test3" );
this.node.assertObject( f3,
this.context,
this.workingMemory );
final DefaultFactHandle f4 = (DefaultFactHandle) this.workingMemory.insert( "test4" );
this.node.assertObject( f4,
this.context,
this.workingMemory );
assertLength( 6,
this.sink.getAsserted() );
// Double check the item is in memory
final BetaMemory memory = (BetaMemory) this.workingMemory.getNodeMemory( this.node );
assertTrue( memory.getRightTupleMemory().contains( f0.getFirstRightTuple() ) );
// Retract an object, check propagations and memory
this.node.retractRightTuple( f0.getFirstRightTuple(),
this.context,
this.workingMemory );
assertLength( 2,
this.sink.getRetracted() );
List tuples = new ArrayList();
tuples.add( ((Object[]) this.sink.getRetracted().get( 0 ))[0] );
tuples.add( ((Object[]) this.sink.getRetracted().get( 1 ))[0] );
assertTrue( tuples.contains( new LeftTuple( tuple1,
f0.getFirstRightTuple(),
this.sink,
true ) ) );
assertTrue( tuples.contains( new LeftTuple( tuple1,
f0.getFirstRightTuple(),
this.sink,
true ) ) );
// Now check the item is no longer in memory
assertFalse( memory.getRightTupleMemory().contains( f0.getFirstRightTuple() ) );
this.node.retractLeftTuple( tuple2,
this.context,
this.workingMemory );
assertEquals( 4,
this.sink.getRetracted().size() );
tuples = new ArrayList();
tuples.add( ((Object[]) this.sink.getRetracted().get( 2 ))[0] );
tuples.add( ((Object[]) this.sink.getRetracted().get( 3 ))[0] );
assertTrue( tuples.contains( new LeftTuple( tuple2,
f3.getFirstRightTuple(),
this.sink,
true ) ) );
assertTrue( tuples.contains( new LeftTuple( tuple2,
f4.getFirstRightTuple(),
this.sink,
true ) ) );
}I think everyone agrees that’s a lot of code and hard for anyone, especially noobies, to understand it’s intent.
This means that developers can be apathetic when adding more similar tests for edge cases and we have a long term maintenance problem when bringing new developers on board.
Enter the “Rete DSL testing harness”. This is an indentation based DSL for setting up and testing nodes. My plan is next to have it working with JUnit4 with a customised test suite. Hopefully everyone can understand what this is doing, which is actually doing and testing more than the above java code.
// setup the nodes
ObjectTypeNode
otn1, java.lang.Integer
LeftInputAdapterNode
lian0, otn1
ObjectTypeNode
otn2, java.lang.Integer
ObjectTypeNode
otn3, java.lang.Integer
// creating a binding to be used in the JoinNode creation
Binding
p1, 0, java.lang.Integer, intValue
JoinNode
join1, lian0, otn2
intValue, !=, p1
JoinNode
join2, join1, otn3
intValue, !=, p1
//insert some facts, this returns and stores an array called "h"
Facts
0, 1, 2, 3, 4
// hd+ is used for compactness (not too many brackets) but is internally rewritten
// as h[d+] and evaluated with MVEL against a "h"
assert
otn1 [h1, h3]
otn2 [h0, h2]
otn3 [h4]
// we can now test some memories, memory order is deterministic
join1
leftMemory [[h1], [h3]] // matches with only one fact
rightMemory [h0, h2]
join2
leftMemory [[h1, h0], [h3, h0],
[h1, h2], [h3, h2]] // matches with two chained facts
rightMemory [h4]
retract
otn1 [h1]
otn2 [h2];
join1
leftMemory [ [h3] ]
rightMemory [h0]
join2
leftMemory [[h3, h0]]
rightMemory [h4]
