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Improve error messages in "robot-simulator"

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Assessment

Difficulty
2/5
Estimated time
1-3 hours
Newbie friendliness
45/100
Issue type
Feature
Clarity
Clearly specified
Activity status
Stale
Tech stack
cpp
Domain
testing-qa

Research direction

Start with robot_simulator_test.cpp and the existing Catch2 test setup. Review Catch2's StringMaker and CATCH_REGISTER_ENUM documentation, then add the proposed diagnostic support and run the robot-simulator tests; done means failed comparisons show pair values and Bearing names instead of placeholders or integers.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Description

The tests in the exercise "robot-simulator" compare the result of the member functions get_position() and get_bearing() with the operator== like this:

TEST_CASE("A_robots_is_created_with_a_position_and_a_direction")
{
    const Robot r;

    const std::pair<int, int> expected_robot_position{0, 0};
    REQUIRE(expected_robot_position == r.get_position());
    REQUIRE(Bearing::NORTH == r.get_bearing());
}

But Catch2 does not know how to print a std::pair, and it prints an enum or enum class like an integer:

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
A_robots_is_created_with_a_position_and_a_direction
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
/home/user/exercism/cpp/robot-simulator/robot_simulator_test.cpp:13
...............................................................................

/home/user/exercism/cpp/robot-simulator/robot_simulator_test.cpp:18: FAILED:
  REQUIRE( expected_robot_position == r.get_position() )
with expansion:
  {?} == {?}


-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
A_robots_is_created_with_a_position_and_a_direction
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
/home/user/exercism/cpp/robot-simulator/robot_simulator_test.cpp:13
...............................................................................

/home/user/exercism/cpp/robot-simulator/robot_simulator_test.cpp:19: FAILED:
  REQUIRE( Bearing::NORTH == r.get_bearing() )
with expansion:
  0 == 2

That's not really helpful.


Catch2 has the a StringMaker for printing custom classes (see the documentation), and it has the macro CATCH_REGISTER_ENUM() for better error messages when working with enums (see the documentation).

By adding a few lines somewhere at the beginning of robot_simulator_test.cpp

// for better error messages
namespace Catch
{
    template <typename T1, typename T2>
    struct StringMaker<std::pair<T1, T2>>
    {
        static std::string convert(const std::pair<T1, T2>& value)
        {
            std::string result = "std::pair{";
            result += StringMaker<T1>::convert(value.first);
            result += ", ";
            result += StringMaker<T2>::convert(value.second);
            result += '}';
            return result;
        }
    };
}
CATCH_REGISTER_ENUM(robot_simulator::Bearing,
        robot_simulator::Bearing::NORTH,
        robot_simulator::Bearing::WEST,
        robot_simulator::Bearing::SOUTH,
        robot_simulator::Bearing::EAST)

we would get better error messages:

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
A_robots_is_created_with_a_position_and_a_direction
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
/home/user/exercism/cpp/robot-simulator/robot_simulator_test.cpp:36
...............................................................................

/home/user/exercism/cpp/robot-simulator/robot_simulator_test.cpp:41: FAILED:
  REQUIRE( expected_robot_position == r.get_position() )
with expansion:
  std::pair{0, 0} == std::pair{0, 1}


-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
A_robots_is_created_with_a_position_and_a_direction
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
/home/user/exercism/cpp/robot-simulator/robot_simulator_test.cpp:36
...............................................................................

/home/user/exercism/cpp/robot-simulator/robot_simulator_test.cpp:42: FAILED:
  REQUIRE( Bearing::NORTH == r.get_bearing() )
with expansion:
  NORTH == SOUTH

AFAIK there are only two possible problems:

  1. robot_simulator_test.cpp becomes more complex. But IMHO those 22 lines can be ignored.

  2. That would effectively enforce the use of enum or enum class for Bearing. IMHO that's not a problem for us because we want idiomatic solutions, and that's enum or better enum class.

IMHO the benefits outweigh these problems.
What do you folks think?

Dominant language
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Merged PRs (30d)
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