1. Spock

2. About me
● Software developer/architect at Michigan
State University
● Before that, 7 years in the insurance industry
as a software developer.
● Twitter: @elizhender

3. Executable specifications

4. ● Natural language
● Programmer oriented

5. BDD

6. ● Extension of TDD (TDD done right!)
● Organized into scenarios: given an initial
context, when an event occurs, then ensure
some outcome
● Spock borrows from BDD extensively

7. ● Tools
● Cucumber
● EasyB
● JBehave

8. Spock

9. ● Spock is a BDD framework written in Groovy
● Based on tools and languages like JUnit,
jMock, Mockito, Groovy, Scala
● Current version: 0.7 - Released in early
October
● Yes, it is named after the character on Star
Trek!

10. ● Concise
● Same tools
● Natural language
● Powerful

11. Getting ready

12. ● http://code.google.
com/p/spock/wiki/GettingStarted
● Instructions for Eclipse, IntelliJ, NetBeans

13. Spock Web Console

14. http://meetspock.appspot.com/

16. Spock and your IDE

17. ● For Eclipse: http://dist.springsource.
org/release/GRECLIPSE/e4.2/

18. Spock Terminology
Spock JUnit
Specification Test● JUnit
class
setup() @Before
cleanup() @After
setupSpec() @BeforeClass
cleanupSpec() @AfterClass
Feature Test
Parameterized feature Theory
Condition Assertion
Exception condition @Test(expected=…)
@FailsWith @Test(expected=…)
Interaction Mock expectation (JMock, EasyMock, Mockito)

19. Anatomy of a Spock
Specification

20. Spock specifications extend
spock.lang.Specification

21. ● Fields
● Fixture methods
● Feature methods
● Helper methods

24. The basics

30. Spock uses the built in JUnit
runner in your IDE

31. Executable specifications – Now we’re talking!

32. What happens when
a test fails?

34. How can we verify that an
exception isn’t thrown?

37. Conditions

38. Types
● Implicit
● Statements in then: and expect: blocks
● Explicit
● Denoted by assert keyword elsewhere
● Exception
● thrown
● notThrown

39. Feature Methods
● When – Then
● When – Then – Where
● Given – When – Then
● Expect
● Expect – Where

40. Expect:

44. Stimulus and response are the same statement.

46. Data Driven Testing

48. If my test passes, that’s great!
But what if it fails???

51. I can easily see which rows
in the table didn’t pass.

53. Another example

55. Column Name
Table values

59. Now, I can compare each result with each
row in the table in my test.

60. And I can see individual row results

61. Interactions (Mocking)

62. ● Spock has its own mocking framework built in
● Can mock interfaces and classes
● Cannot do partial mocks (as of right now)

66. Another example

70. Behavior for an invalid appointment
Behavior when the appointment is on a holiday

71. Database Interactions

72. ● Specifications that access a database can be
mocked.
○ Can use in-memory databases like H2 or Derby
● Use shared annotation for the field with the
driver information.

77. Constraints on return values

78. subscriber.isAlive() >> true // single return value,
repeated indefinitely
subscriber.isAlive() >>> [true, false, true] // multiple return
values (anything that Groovy can iterate over), last one
repeated indefinitely
def random = new Random()
subscriber.isAlive() >> { random.nextBoolean() } // custom
return value
subscriber.isAlive() >> { throw new TimeoutException() } //
custom action

79. Helper methods

82. Helper Method Requirements
● Implicit conditions must be turned into
explicit conditions (use assert keyword)
● Must have void return type

83. Spock extensions

84. ● Interception-based
● Built-in
● @Timeout
● @Ignore
● @IgnoreRest
● @FailsWith
● Custom

85. Spock and Geb

86. Geb
● Browser automation
● Uses WebDriver(Selenium) and HtmlUnit
● Built-in support for PageObject Pattern

87. What are page objects?
Models of areas of your UI that your tests
interact with.

88. For BDD testing you'll need Geb, Geb for
Spock, and Selenium.

96. Testing with Spock and
Frameworks

97. ● Spring:
http://code.google.com/p/spock/wiki/SpringExtension
● Grails:
http://grails.org/doc/2.0.0.RC1/guide/testing.html

98. Summary

99. ● Executable Specifications
● BDD
● Spock
○ Feature methods

100. ● Given-Stimulus-Response
○ When-Then
○ Given-When-Then
○ Expect-Where
○ etc.

101. ● Spock can integrate with a number of
frameworks
○ Geb
○ Spring
○ Grails

102. Links
● Spock Framework: http://code.google.
com/p/spock/
● Spock basics: http://code.google.
com/p/spock/wiki/SpockBasics
● Geb: http://www.gebish.org/
○ Manual: http://www.gebish.org/manual/0.7.0/index.
html
● BDD: http://behaviour-driven.org/

103. Live long and
happy testing!