Disabling privacy for testing #1882

sigmundch · 2012-02-27T21:30:00Z

It would be very useful to have some mechanism to test private members without having to expose them in a library.

One option is to add a flag to allow access to private members, for instance:
'--disable_privacy'

The semantics could be either:
(a) all imports now export all names (including private names) to the imported library.
(b) only the imports of the initial script have this semantics (so tests can see internals of the libraries it imports, but the rest of the code wont have to worry about name collisions).

This requires changes in both the VM and frog. I'm arbitrarily labeling this bug with the frog area because I can't mark both.

This would be a test case that should work:
mysource.dart:
#library("mysource");
get _fooForTesting() => 1;

mytest.dart:
#import("mysource.dart");
main() => Expect.equals(1, _fooForTesting);

dart --disable_privacy mytest.dart should pass.

anders-sandholm · 2012-06-08T12:55:18Z

Removed Area-Frog label.
Added Area-Dart2JS, FromAreaFrog labels.

kasperl · 2012-06-12T14:22:19Z

Removed Type-Defect, Priority-Medium, FromAreaFrog labels.
Added Type-Enhancement, Priority-Low labels.

kasperl · 2012-09-03T11:21:54Z

Added this to the Later milestone.

kasperl · 2012-10-17T10:27:30Z

Removed this from the Later milestone.

kasperl · 2012-10-17T10:50:35Z

Added this to the Later milestone.

kasperl · 2012-10-17T11:11:42Z

Removed Priority-Low label.
Added Priority-Medium label.

kasperl · 2013-05-23T07:29:35Z

Added TriageForM5 label.

kasperl · 2013-05-28T11:14:05Z

Removed TriageForM5 label.

kasperl · 2014-07-10T10:22:53Z

Removed this from the Later milestone.
Added Oldschool-Milestone-Later label.

kasperl · 2014-08-04T07:42:15Z

Removed Oldschool-Milestone-Later label.

floitschG · 2014-08-14T10:47:32Z

Reassigning to language.
I fully agree that a way to access private state during testing would be extremely useful.

Removed Area-Dart2JS label.
Added Area-Language label.

gbracha · 2015-01-03T00:06:23Z

Issue #10219 has been merged into this issue.

rmacnak-google · 2015-12-05T00:24:16Z

Mirrors can be used to bypass library privacy.

floitschG · 2015-12-05T00:52:38Z

That doesn't work on Flutter, dart2js, ... and is extremely painful.

eernstg · 2015-12-07T08:25:34Z

For reflectable, a programmatic privacy override mechanism would be very useful as well.

michaelcarter-wf · 2015-12-11T16:59:17Z

+1 for a way to turn off privacy in tests.

jtmcdole · 2016-01-21T04:46:20Z

import 'dart:mirrors';

class Foo {
int _privateInt = 12;
}
...
var inst = reflect(new Foo());
print(inst.getField(#_privateInt).reflectee); // 12

jtmcdole · 2016-01-21T04:57:51Z

Scratch that; doesn't work across libraries.

+1 for a way to turn off privacy :)

zoechi · 2016-01-21T10:16:13Z

It was mentioned in discussions to introduce something like friend libraries which are allowed to access each others private members also as a possible replacement for part / part of. I'm not sure how this would work out for all use cases.
Anyway I also think there should be a way around this limitation.

lrhn · 2016-01-21T11:34:01Z

Just "turning off" privacy is not going to work. That would make "_foo" in two different libraries suddenly conflict or override each other, so some code will just fail to work - or even compile. Private names is a way to avoid having to invent unique names as much as it's a way of restricting access.

I highly recommend not using privacy for things you want to test. Instead move them to a separate helper library where they are public, and run tests against that library. Then export only the parts you need in the real library.
That won't work for private members of public classes, but if you assume the presence of private fields or methods, then your tests are not refactoring-safe. Changing the name of a private member should be a completely invisible change. Testing the public methods should be sufficient to test that a class actually behaves as it should. If you have functionality that you want to test independently of the class API, then that functionality is likely a good choice for moving into static helper functions that can actually be tested independently.

(In other words: If you think you need access to private stuff, consider redesigning your class and library layout to not need it any more).

rmacnak-google · 2016-01-21T17:45:21Z

@jtmcdole To do it across libraries, you need to get the private symbol with respect to the library you're trying to access.

class Foo {
int _privateInt = 12;
}
...
var inst = reflect(new Foo());
var sym = MirrorSystem.getSymbol('_privateInt', inst.type.owner);
print(inst.getField(sym).reflectee); // 12

jtmcdole · 2016-01-23T20:12:32Z

@rmacnak-google, yep, I found that out via a different method and it isn't too messy. I like the type.owner though. Just wish there was a ways to still use #_privateInt in that expression.

lrhn · 2016-01-25T08:57:29Z

You can't use #_privateInt because it's the private name belonging to your library. It's a completely different name than one with similar syntax in a different library.

zoechi · 2016-03-19T19:35:40Z

Related #22841

zoechi · 2017-02-23T08:44:29Z

#28273 seems to be the chosen approach. Can this issue be closed?

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sigmundch added Type-Enhancement area-language Dart language related items (some items might be better tracked at github.com/dart-lang/language). labels Jan 3, 2015

rmacnak-google closed this as completed Dec 5, 2015

floitschG reopened this Dec 5, 2015

kevmoo removed the triaged label Feb 29, 2016

kevmoo added P2 A bug or feature request we're likely to work on type-enhancement A request for a change that isn't a bug and removed triaged labels Feb 29, 2016

sestegra mentioned this issue May 22, 2016

Unnecessary part and library ? dartsome/serializer#24

Closed

munificent changed the title ~~disabling privacy for testing~~ Disabling privacy for testing Dec 19, 2016

rmacnak-google mentioned this issue Jan 25, 2018

Wish for a way to test non-public APIs #31775

Closed

matanlurey added the closed-obsolete Closed as the reported issue is no longer relevant label Jun 19, 2018

matanlurey closed this as completed Jun 19, 2018

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Disabling privacy for testing #1882

Disabling privacy for testing #1882

sigmundch commented Feb 27, 2012 •

edited by munificent

anders-sandholm commented Jun 8, 2012

kasperl commented Jun 12, 2012

kasperl commented Sep 3, 2012

kasperl commented Oct 17, 2012

kasperl commented Oct 17, 2012

kasperl commented Oct 17, 2012

kasperl commented May 23, 2013

kasperl commented May 28, 2013

kasperl commented Jul 10, 2014

kasperl commented Aug 4, 2014

floitschG commented Aug 14, 2014

gbracha commented Jan 3, 2015

rmacnak-google commented Dec 5, 2015

floitschG commented Dec 5, 2015

eernstg commented Dec 7, 2015

michaelcarter-wf commented Dec 11, 2015

jtmcdole commented Jan 21, 2016

jtmcdole commented Jan 21, 2016

zoechi commented Jan 21, 2016

lrhn commented Jan 21, 2016

rmacnak-google commented Jan 21, 2016

jtmcdole commented Jan 23, 2016

lrhn commented Jan 25, 2016

zoechi commented Mar 19, 2016

zoechi commented Feb 23, 2017

Disabling privacy for testing #1882

Disabling privacy for testing #1882

Comments

sigmundch commented Feb 27, 2012 • edited by munificent

anders-sandholm commented Jun 8, 2012

kasperl commented Jun 12, 2012

kasperl commented Sep 3, 2012

kasperl commented Oct 17, 2012

kasperl commented Oct 17, 2012

kasperl commented Oct 17, 2012

kasperl commented May 23, 2013

kasperl commented May 28, 2013

kasperl commented Jul 10, 2014

kasperl commented Aug 4, 2014

floitschG commented Aug 14, 2014

gbracha commented Jan 3, 2015

rmacnak-google commented Dec 5, 2015

floitschG commented Dec 5, 2015

eernstg commented Dec 7, 2015

michaelcarter-wf commented Dec 11, 2015

jtmcdole commented Jan 21, 2016

jtmcdole commented Jan 21, 2016

zoechi commented Jan 21, 2016

lrhn commented Jan 21, 2016

rmacnak-google commented Jan 21, 2016

jtmcdole commented Jan 23, 2016

lrhn commented Jan 25, 2016

zoechi commented Mar 19, 2016

zoechi commented Feb 23, 2017

sigmundch commented Feb 27, 2012 •

edited by munificent