Add templates for exercises batch 7 #1787

meatball133 · 2025-09-14T14:15:15Z

Includea:

Meetup
Nth prime
Palindrome products
Pangram
Pascal triangle
Phone number

github-actions · 2025-09-14T14:15:25Z

This PR touches files which potentially affect the outcome of the tests of an exercise. This will cause all students' solutions to affected exercises to be re-tested.

If this PR does not affect the result of the test (or, for example, adds an edge case that is not worth rerunning all tests for), please add the following to the merge-commit message which will stops student's tests from re-running. Please copy-paste to avoid typos.

[no important files changed]

For more information, refer to the documentation. If you are unsure whether to add the message or not, please ping @exercism/maintainers-admin in a comment. Thank you!

kotp

Approving, as these are "good", but we might consider the templates being more cookie cutter.

kotp · 2025-09-15T05:53:34Z

exercises/practice/palindrome-products/palindrome_products_test.rb


 class PalindromesTest < Minitest::Test
-  def test_smallest_palindrome_from_single_digit_factors
+  def test_find_the_smallest_palindrome_from_single_digit_factors


Not really a fan of the phrase "test find the" but "test for the" makes sense to me.

kotp · 2025-09-15T05:55:37Z

exercises/practice/pangram/pangram_test.rb

+    sentence = ''
    result = Pangram.pangram?(sentence)
-    refute result, "Expected false, got: #{result.inspect}. #{sentence.inspect} is NOT a pangram"
+    refute result, "Expected false, got: #{result.inspect}. #{sentence.inspect} is not a pangram"


Have we slipped from using "expected, actual" as a pattern? The result, I would suspect, would be resolution of the tests, rather than an evaluation of what is actually being under test.

I am not sure what you mean. Could you give an example when this happen?

In history? I think the old templating system, I used expected, actual was used for that.

Structurally, or as a pattern, I think it is helpful to have:

class TriangleTest < Minitest::Test <% json["cases"].each do |cases| %> def test_<%= underscore(cases["description"]) %> <%= skip? %> actual = Triangle.new(<%= cases["input"]["count"] %>).rows expected = <%= cases["expected"] %> assert_equal expected, actual, 'Helpful message if appropriate" end <% end %>

Which in every assertion line being something like assert expected, actual, message, and the details of what the expected and actual being on their own lines, which can make reading the tests easier as well.

Okay I I think I understand. And sorry for taking sometime for reply. I have had quite a bit this week so I only have the weekend over to open source work.

A big part of templating is just that we can in aftermath make changes really quickly, like 1 line change or something can do it for an entire test file. My goal with the templating is to make the styling the same as the old one mostly as a proof on concept that the generator can handle it. In some cases have I changed the test cases in either dissucused style changes or to make the exercise in line with problem spec.

I have no problem start implementing these style changes now but on the other hand there is quite a few already merged in templates so as I see it we also have to go back and change those as well.

Right on. I did consider not saying anything at all... and it could be an "after the fact" change, since it is definitely pattern work, and should not affect test functionality.

If I remember correctly, I was at least co-author of the original templating system that was here before. And also knew that students are encouraged to read the tests (at least for the practice exercises) as there were no concept exercises back then at all.

If you want to see where we can keep the simplistic assertion lines by making expected, actual be the pattern, that would be appreciated I think even further than only myself. But I would also be tickled pink, if that were possible.

This could easily be a single assertion, though. Store the expected results in a collection expected values and assert that the collection of actual values are identical to the collection of expected values.

I have never really loved that test either. ;)

Yeah but like should we also do a singel assertion in palindromes? It is here I think a distiction in how we handle these kinds of cases have to be made (and it could be a mix of those two it doesnt have to be one or the other).

Can you link to what you are looking at? I went to the palindromes Line 5 to see what I could see.

This is how it is:

def test_smallest_palindrome_from_single_digit_factors palindromes = Palindromes.new(max_factor: 9) palindromes.generate smallest = palindromes.smallest assert_equal 1, smallest.value assert_equal [[1, 1]], smallest.factors end

This is how it may be (untested, here for demonstration and not refactored to "base":

def test_smallest_palindrome_from_single_digit_factors palindromes = Palindromes.new(max_factor: 9).generate # if generate returns the instance actual = palindromes.smallest.value, palindromes.smallest.factors expected = 1, [1, 1] assert_equal expected, actual end

This may be improved further, not looking at the exercise in full. But kind of pattern can be useful for us overall. It also presents a certain pattern of familiarity for the student, as they know what to look for while reading the test files, and how to decipher them a bit more easily, I think.

This generator, yeah, it is for our benefit, but everything exposed to the student, the result that comes from the generator, should be for their benefit.

Alright I made a new commit with the changes we have disscussed let me know if it was this you had in mind. Since what I was thinking about was that the palindrome products case with assert_includes might be a bit confusing but it might actually work.

I modified your message for what I would encourage for readability for the reader. It gets the reader to the points that you have in mind (hopefully) to look at without having to spend time working to interpret what is actually referred to.

Not a criticism, but you likely have what is in mind, the reader needs to interpret this to understand, and I hope that the changes reflect what your thoughts were.

kotp · 2025-09-15T06:01:24Z

exercises/practice/meetup/.meta/test_template.erb

+<% json["cases"].each do |cases| %>
+    def test_<%= underscore(cases["description"]) %>
+        <%= skip? %>
+        meetup = Meetup.new(<%= cases["input"]["month"] %>, <%= cases["input"]["year"] %>).day(:<%= cases["input"]["dayofweek"].downcase %>, :<%= cases["input"]["week"] %>)


Conceptually, and as a pattern, the tests are assert expected, actual and we can use these names. If we are careful with this, a high percentage of template portions will follow this pattern, the only difference being what is referenced by actual as to what is called, while the expected is always what we expect.

kotp

Definitely looking better, not tested locally.

kotp · 2025-09-21T22:19:39Z

exercises/practice/palindrome-products/palindrome_products_test.rb

-    assert_equal 9, largest.value
-    assert_includes [[[1, 9], [3, 3]], [[3, 3], [1, 9]]], largest.factors
+    actual = palindromes.largest.value, palindromes.largest.factors
+    expected = [[9, [[1, 9], [3, 3]]], [9, [[3, 3], [1, 9]]]]


Likely one extra pair of [] brackets... Gotta go back and look at how this is created. But also, perhaps not really problematic.

Just knowing that the assignment itself will be evaluated as an Array is good information to have in mind as a Ruby developer though.

We should avoid nesting to the extent that we can though, as it can be confusing as a learner. (It goes the other way, though, if you are unaware.)

Add templates for exercises batch 7

ff20135

meatball133 force-pushed the add-template-batch7 branch from a174f7b to ff20135 Compare September 14, 2025 14:18

kotp approved these changes Sep 15, 2025

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kotp mentioned this pull request Sep 15, 2025

Fix typo in "test_error_for_largest_if_min_more_than_max" #1788

Closed

Change to assert expected, actual pattern

6177eba

meatball133 force-pushed the add-template-batch7 branch from a1ebd9b to 6177eba Compare September 21, 2025 21:03

kotp reviewed Sep 21, 2025

View reviewed changes

Fix palindromeproducts test case nesting

b34508d

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Add templates for exercises batch 7 #1787

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Add templates for exercises batch 7 #1787

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meatball133 commented Sep 14, 2025

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meatball133 Sep 21, 2025 • edited by kotp Loading Uh oh! There was an error while loading. Please reload this page.

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meatball133 Sep 21, 2025 •

edited by kotp

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kotp Sep 21, 2025 •

edited

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