Addendum: How to test a big JS application

[Helmut Giese]

Hello out there,
Joost's answer to my original post showed me that I omitted a central
point: My requirements are completely functional, there is no browser
in sight and no visual output whatsoever.
Ok, before you think I am nuts, here is the background: We have a
fairly big application for the PC desktop and the idea came up to port
it to Flash (you know Adobe / Macromedia).
This would mean 2 things:
1) The GUI will have to be re-done. This is a fact, no discussion
about it.
2) However, if we could port the functional part to JS it seems
possible to use it as 'actions scripts' inside Flash (some dialect of
JS being Flash's internal scripting language) - and thus a complete
re-write could be avoided.

Hence I am in the - completely unusual, I am sure - situation, that I
have to create JS code, which produces no visual effects directly but
instead will - later - initiate such effects inside Flash.

Any hints or ideas on how to test such a beast will be most welcome.
Best regards
Helmut Giese

 

[Joost Diepenmaat]

Hello out there,
Joost's answer to my original post showed me that I omitted a central
point: My requirements are completely functional, there is no browser
in sight and no visual output whatsoever.
Ok, before you think I am nuts, here is the background: We have a
fairly big application for the PC desktop and the idea came up to port
it to Flash (you know Adobe / Macromedia).
This would mean 2 things:
1) The GUI will have to be re-done. This is a fact, no discussion
about it.
2) However, if we could port the functional part to JS it seems
possible to use it as 'actions scripts' inside Flash (some dialect of
JS being Flash's internal scripting language) - and thus a complete
re-write could be avoided.

Ah right. I think you may want Tamarin. This is the engine that does
ActionScript 3 in flash 9 and can be build standalone with a shell, and
presumably does IO etc. That leaves you with the requirement for a
javascript test framework. There are probably a few of those, but
they're not all that hard to write if none of them meet your
requirements.

See: http://www.mozilla.org/projects/tamarin/

 

[Helmut Giese]

Hi Joost,

Ah right. I think you may want Tamarin. This is the engine that does
ActionScript 3 in flash 9 and can be build standalone with a shell, and
presumably does IO etc.

sounds good - even raises the probability that the code will actually
run inside Flash.

That leaves you with the requirement for a
javascript test framework. There are probably a few of those, but
they're not all that hard to write if none of them meet your
requirements.

If I can write (test) results to file(s) I can use the framework I am
used to - and all is well.
Thanks a lot and best regards
Helmut Giese