Create online specifications

Most of the specifications we write are known up front because this is precisely what guides the construction of our systems. But sometimes data comes first and drives what we can do with the system. For example we want to check that:

1. all the Wikipedia pages mentioning the term “BDD” are referencing specs2
2. if there is a specs2 link on the page, the linked page must exist

More precisely we want to create one example for 1. and if it succeeds, create as many examples as there are links in 2.. This can be done with the org.specs2.specification.dsl.Online trait and the continueWith method:

class WikipediaBddSpec extends Specification with Online { def is = s2"""
  All the pages mentioning the term BDD must contain a reference to specs2 $e1
"""

  def e1 = {
    val pages = Wikipedia.getPages("BDD")

    { pages must contain((_:Page) must mention("specs2")) } continueWith
      pagesSpec(pages)
  }

  def pagesSpec(pages: Seq[Page]): Fragments = {
    val specs2Links = pages.flatMap(_.getLinks).filter(_.contains("specs2"))

    s2"""
     The specs2 links must all be active
     ${ Fragments.foreach(specs2Links)(isActive) }
    """
  }

  def isActive(link: HtmlLink) =
    s2"""
  The page at ${link.getName}
    must be active ${ link must beActive }"""

  // implement this matcher
  def mention(name: String): Matcher[Page] = ???
  def beActive: Matcher[HtmlLink] = ???

In the specification above, if we succeed in checking each BDD page then we continue with the creation of individual examples for each encountered link.