Previous page: Fixture Arguments Next page: Target objects Parent page: Important concepts

Flow Mode

If DoFixture or SequenceFixture are loaded by the first table on a test page, they take over the entire test page processing. This allows you to split the test table into multiple tables, to make the test more readable.

!|info.fitnesse.fixturegallery.DoFixtureTest|

|fill|10|times with|x|

|check|char at|4|x|

|set list|A,B,C,D|

|show|char at|2|

When the table is split like this, then each sub-table is first matched to an enclosing flow fixture method. If no such method exists, a fixture class is loaded as it would normally be, without the flow mode. This allows you to write tests that use DoFixture methods to implement story-like workflow, but still use the benefits of a more structured approach when that makes sense. DoFixture even helps you with that: if the flow mode method returns an instance of a fit.Fixture class or one of its subclasses, the rest of the active table is processed as if it were writen for that fixture. So you can use a DoFixture method to initialise other fixtures, prepare the context or clean up. If the flow method returns an array or list of objects, the table is analysed as if it was written for an ArrayFixture . Here is an example that uses an embedded fixture and array conversion:

!|info.fitnesse.fixturegallery.DoFixtureFlowTest|

!3 The following table is executed by an embedded !-SetUpFixture-!

|prepare players|
|player|post code|balance|
|John Smith|SW4 66Z|10.00|
|Michael Jordan|NE1 8AT|12.00|

!3 The following table is executed by an !-ArrayFixture-!

|list players|
|name|post code|balance|
|John Smith|SW4 66Z|10.00|
|Michael Jordan|NE1 8AT|12.00|

Java Source Code

package info.fitnesse.fixturegallery;

import info.fitnesse.fixturegallery.domain.Player;

import java.util.List;

import fit.Fixture;
import fitlibrary.DoFixture;

public class DoFixtureFlowTest extends DoFixture{
	public Fixture preparePlayers(){
		return new SetUpFixtureTest();
	}
	public List<Player> listPlayers(){
		return Player.players;
	}
}

.NET Source Code

using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Text;
using fit;
namespace info.fitnesse.fixturegallery
{
    public class DoFixtureFlowTest : fitlibrary.DoFixture
    {
        public Fixture PreparePlayers()
        {
            return new SetUpFixtureTest();
        }
        public List<Player> ListPlayers()
        {
            return Player.players;
        }
    }
}

Python Source Code

from fitLib.DoFixture import DoFixture
from fit.RowFixture import RowFixture
from info.fitnesse.fixturegallery.SetUpFixtureTest  import SetUpFixtureTest
from info.fitnesse.fixturegallery.domain.Player     import Player
import types

class DoFixtureFlowTest(DoFixture):
    _typeDict = {}

    _typeDict["preparePlayers.types"] = [ SetUpFixtureTest ]
    def preparePlayers(self):
        return SetUpFixtureTest()

    _typeDict["listPlayers.types"] = [ "$Array" ] #< ACTUALLY: List of Players
    def listPlayers(self):
        # -- DESIRED: return Player.players
        #    But need to add type hints for list.scalarType .
        return ( Player.players, Player._typeDict )
        # ALTERNATIVES:
        #   return RowFixture(Player.players, Player._typeDict)
        #   return ArrayFixture(Player.players, Player._typeDict)

Previous page: Fixture Arguments Next page: Target objects Parent page: Important concepts