Stephen Kellett wrote:

> In message <32ll5mF3mk632U1 / individual.net>, Florian Gross 
> <flgr / ccan.de> writes
> 
>> How does this compare to free solutions like rcov?
> 
> I cannot tell you, I have not used rcov. I just tried Google for "rcov 
> Ruby Coverage" and couldn't find anything that I thought was the right 
> target. If you are referring to a tool that produces text output and 
> doesn't give you the output until the tool has ended there is no 
> comparison - both give you coverage results, but one gives you a lot 
> more insight into what is happening and how to represent the results 
> and/or direct your testing, plus providing support for regression testing.

Ah, rcov is a pure Ruby tool that generates a color-highlighted copy of 
the source code in HTML. I've found it quite useful. It's available via RPA.

> Ruby Coverage Validator graphical, stats updated in real time as the app 
> executes - enabling you to direct your testing sequence to ensure 
> maximum coverage if you are running interactively rather than as a 
> regression test. You can run merge results from one run into another, or 
> a central session - ideal for regression testing. You can export the 
> results in HTML or XML. Multiple views onto the same data, etc.

That sounds like it could be useful, though I'm not 100% sure how it 
would be used in practice.

>> I especially wonder if you are using trace_funcs (which can be quite 
>> slow)
> 
> Yes. Although the slowness would be compounded by using a trace func 
> written in Ruby. Our trace func is written in C++. Matz and a few 
> helpful people in this newsgroup provided enough information for us to 
> put things together after examining the source code and writing quite a 
> few test applications.

Interesting -- I've not done this before, but if writing a trace_func in 
a lower level language speeds it up severely that might be a very 
important option. Thanks for mentioning this.

> Aside: We are not interested in the "Is Python better/worse than 
> Ruby/Java/whatever" debate. It doesn't get anyone anywhere, except 
> distracted from using their own preference in language choice.

That makes a lot of sense, of course. I didn't mean to imply that Ruby 
or Python were better or that the error was a bad one. I just found it a 
bit confusing while I was looking for information on how your tool works.

Thank you for the detailed response!