On 2010.9.28 8:21 AM, Ovid wrote:
> There are no standards that I know of because different situations can call
> for
> different responses. However, be very careful about just mocking everything.
> If
> you do and their API changes, you'll find yourself with passing tests for
code which
> does not work.
>
> Contact the people supplying the API (or read their docs carefully) and find
> out if
> you can interrogate for a version and what guarantees they provide for said
version.
> Don't allow mocks if the version changes unless you can't connect. With
that, you
> might offer people the option of connecting live, but also making it clear
that you
> only support version X.
You should also contact them and ask if they have a test server or test
account you can use. For example, good payment APIs have sets of bogus credit
card numbers you can feed it to generate certain responses. One number is
guaranteed to always work. Another is guaranteed to always return an address
verification failure. Etc...
--
But there's no sense crying over every mistake.
You just keep on trying till you run out of cake.
-- Jonathan Coulton, "Still Alive"
