Unit testing back-fill question: how thorough to be?

G'day:

I'm extracting this from a thread I started on the CFML Slack channel (it's not a CFML-specific question, before you browse-away from here ;-), because it's a chunk of text/content that possibly warrants preservation beyond Slack's content lifetime, plus I think the audience here (such as it is, these days), are probably more experienced than the bods on the Slack channel.

I've found myself questioning my approach to a test case I'm having to backfill in our application. I'm keen to hear what people think.

I am testing a method like this:

function testMe() {
    // irrelevant lines of code here
    
    if (someService.isItSafe()) {
        someOtherService.doThingWeDontWantToHappen()

        things = yetAnotherService.getThings()
        for (stuff in things) {
            stuff.doWhenSafe()
            if (someCondition) {
                return false
            }
        }
        moarService.doThisOnlyWhenSafe()
        
        return true
    }
    
    return false
}

That implementation is fixed for now, So I can't refactor it to make it more testable just yet. I need to play with this specific hand I've been dealt.

The case I am currently implementing is for when it's not safe (someService.isItSafe() returns false to indicate this). When it's not safe, then a subprocess doesn't run (all the stuff in the if block), and the method returns false.

I've thrown-together this sort of test:

it("doesn't do [a description of the overall subprocess] if it's not safe to do so", () => {
    someService = mockbox.createMock("someService")
    someService.$("isItSafe").$results(false)

    someOtherService = mockbox.createMock("SomeOtherService")
    someOtherService.$(method="doThingWeDontWantToHappen", callback=() => fail("this should not be called if it's not safe"))
    
    yetAnotherService = mockbox.createMock("YetAnotherService")
    moarService = mockbox.createMock("MoarService")
    
    serviceToTest = new ServiceToTest(someService, someOtherService, yetAnotherService, moarService)
    
    result = serviceToTest.testMe()
    
    expect(result).toBeFalse
})

In summary, I'm forcing isItSafe to return false, and I'm mocking the first part of the subprocess to fail if it's called. And obviously I'm also testing the return value.

That works. Exactly as written, the test passes. If I tweak it so that isItSafe returns true, then the test fails with "this should not be called if it's not safe".

However I'm left wondering if I should also mock yetAnotherService.getThings, Stuff.doWhenSafe and moarService.doThisOnlyWhenSafe to also fail if they are called. They are part of the sub-process that must not run as well (well I guess it's safe for getThings to run, but not the other two).

In a better world the subprocess code could all actually be in a method called doSubprocess, rather than inline in testMe and the answer would be to simply make sure that wasn't called. We will get there, but for now we need the testing in before we do the refactor to do so.

So the things I'm wondering about are:

• Is it "OK" to only fail on the first part of the subprocess, or should I belt and braces the rest of it too?
• Am I being too completist to think to fail each step, especially given they will be unreachable after the first fail?
• I do not know the timeframe for the refactor. Ideally it's "soon", but it's not scheduled. We have just identified that this code is too critical to not have tests, so I'm backfilling the test cases. If it was "soon", I'd keep the test brief (as it is now); but as it might not be "soon" I wonder if I should go the extra mile.
• I guess once this test is in place, if we do any more maintenance on testMe, we will look at the tests first (TDD...), and adjust them accordingly if merely checking doThingWeDontWantToHappen doesn't get called is no longer sufficient to test this case. But that's in an ideal world that we do not reside in yet, so I can't even be certain of that.

What do you think?

Righto.

--
Adam