Unit test for String() method of a struct?

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1

In your packages you have defined structs. Each such struct has a String() function.

Do you create unit tests for those String() functions ? Does it make sense to have them, or do they bring too little value - what do you all think ?

2

I don’t have a definitive answer, just my 2 cents:

  • The only time I bother testing the String function is if the type I’m defining is essentially a wrapper around Go’s builtin string type. For example, I have a type that holds 2 versions of a string: a case-folded string and the “normal” string. Whenever I put values of this type into a map, I use the case-folded string (retrieved via a CaseFold() function), but the type’s String() function always returns the original string. I’ll have a test to make sure these work correctly.

  • For the other 99% of the types I implement, I do not test the output of String because my code should not expect specific output. For those types, if any tests relied on a specific format of String, then the tests are wrong and must be changed to not rely on specific output.

3

As Russ and Rob say:

func (Time) String

func (t Time) String() string

String returns the time formatted using the format string

“2006-01-02 15:04:05.999999999 -0700 MST”

The returned string is meant for debugging.

There is no need to test debugging output.

4

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