Quality Code: Software Testing Principles, Practices, and Patterns

Cutting the Cord

When you test-drive, you create the seams that support your testing intent. Recognizing that the retrieve() method (Listing 14-2)

• Was a bit long

• Had no ready-made seams with which to sever the network connection for testing

• And performed a wide variety of low-level mechanics in support of its purpose

I decided to simplify and encapsulate it before continuing. Commit [c602d34] was the first application of this principle for WebRetriever.

Listing 14-2: The working but unwieldy and poorly testable first version of WebRetriever.retrieve()

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public String retrieve(String URI) throws IOException {  HttpClient httpClient = new DefaultHttpClient();  HttpGet httpGet = new HttpGet(URI);  HttpResponse ...