Elixir - testing a full script - testing

Question

I'm writing a test to check a function (called automatically by GenServer when a new file enters a folder) that calls other functions in the same module with pipes in order to read a file, process its content to insert it if needed and returns a list (:errors and :ok maps).
results looks like :
[
error: "Data not found",
ok: %MyModule{
field1: field1data,
field2: field2data
},
ok: %MyModule{
field1: field1data,
field2: field2data
},
error: "Data not found"
the code :
def processFile(file) do
insertResultsMap =
File.read!(file)
|> getLines()
|> extractMainData()
|> Enum.map(fn(x) -> insertLines(x) end)
|> Enum.group_by(fn x -> elem(x, 0) end)
handleErrors(Map.get(insertResultsMap, :error))
updateAnotherTableWithLines(Map.get(insertResultsMap, :ok))
end
defp getLines(docContent) do
String.split(docContent, "\n")
end
defp extractMainData(docLines) do
Enum.map(fn(x) -> String.split(x, ",") end)
end
defp insertLines([field1, field2, field3, field4]) do
Attrs = %{
field1: String.trim(field1),
field2: String.trim(field2),
field3: String.trim(field3),
field4: String.trim(field4)
}
mymodule.create_stuff(Attrs)
end
defp handleErrors(errors) do
{:ok, file} = File.open(#errorsFile, [:append])
saveErrors(file, errors)
File.close(file)
end
defp saveErrors(_, []), do: :ok
defp saveErrors(file, [{:error, changeset}|rest]) do
changes = for {key, value} <- changeset.changes do
"#{key} #{value}"
end
errors = for {key, {message, _}} <- changeset.errors do
"#{key} #{message}"
end
errorData = "data: #{Enum.join(changes, ", ")} \nErrors: #{Enum.join(errors, ", ")}\n\n"
IO.binwrite(file, errorData)
saveErrors(file, rest)
end
defp updateAnotherTableWithLines(insertedLines) do
Enum.map(insertedLines, fn {:ok, x} -> updateOtherTable(x) end)
end
defp updateOtherTable(dataForUpdate) do
"CLOSE" -> otherModule.doStuff(dataForUpdate.field1, dataForUpdate.field2)
end
I have several questions, and some will be pretty basic since I'm still learning :
What do you think of the code ? Any advices ? (take into account I voluntarily obfuscated names).
If I want to test this, is it the right way to test only processFile function ? Or should I make public more of them and test them individually ?
When I test the processFile function, I check that I'm receiving a list. Any way to make sure this list has only elements I'm waiting for, thus error: "String" or ok: %{}" ?

Answer 1

What do you think of the code? Any advices? (take into account I voluntarily obfuscated names).
Opinion based.
If I want to test this, is it the right way to test only processFile function?
Yes.
Or should I make public more of them and test them individually?
No, this is an implementation detail and testing it is an anti-pattern.
When I test the processFile function, I check that I'm receiving a list. Any way to make sure this list has only elements I'm waiting for, thus error: "String" or ok: %{}"?
You receive a Keyword. To check the explicit value, one might use:
foo = processFile(file)
assert not is_nil(foo[:ok])
OTOH, I’d better return a map from there and pattern match it:
assert %{ok: _} = processFile(file)
To assert that the result does not have anything save for :oks and :errors, one might use list subtraction:
assert Enum.uniq(Keyword.keys(result)) -- [:ok, :error] == []