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kotlinlang

Hi! I’ve been experimenting with a <https://github.com/nielsfalk/kotlin-datatable-plugin|small DSL for tabular data in Kotlin>, mainly to make parameterized tests less verbose and a bit more expressive.
For example, with Kotest:
```import de.nielsfalk.dataTables.Data
import io.kotest.core.spec.style.FreeSpec

class HelloSpockTest : FreeSpec({
    "length of Spock's and his friends' names" - {
        @Data("name"   , "expectedLength") Spock {
              "Spock"  ǀ 5
              "Kirk"   ǀ 4
              "Scotty" ǀ 6
        }.each {
            "${name}'s name has length $expectedLength" {
                assert(name.length == expectedLength)
            }
        }
    }
})```
I’m a fan of the good old Spock Framework, especially its data tables &amp; power asserts, and I’m trying to bring some of that expressiveness to Kotlin.
I’d really appreciate feedback from Kotest users:
• Do you like this style?
• Would you consider using something like this in your projects?
• Is there anything about it that feels awkward or surprising?

As long as it is about JVM-only and not KMP, there is work-in-progress for a Kotlin frontend to Spock to be able to write Spock specifications in Kotlin, maybe you are interested in that too. :slightly_smiling_face:
<https://pshevche.github.io/spockk/|pshevche.github.io/spockk>

Wow I had no Idea about Spockk and I love it. I startet 7 month before Spockk but I got interrupted it for a longer period. So now compairing them, my way of tabular data is even less verbose than Spockk but has less features and no IDE-plugin, it can be used in multiplatform projects and outside of tests. So I think it still has value depending on preferences and requirements.

Personally I don't like Spock at all, including these data tables, because:
• if I need a wider value, all formatting needs to change, and it's harder to see in Github what exactly changed
• less type safety
• for larger tables, difficult to see which table cell means what, easier to deal with named parameters in a data class

so
```
listOf(
TestCase(name = "Kirk", expectedLength = 4)
(snip)```


can you share what power asserting features you are missing in Kotest?

&gt; if I need a wider value, all formatting needs to chang
It does not need to, it just improves readability, but is not a necessity.
Also, you don't need to use data tables at all, they are overall just syntax sugar for multiple data providers with fixed values.
&gt; less type safety
No, you have full type safety if you wish so, just declare the type as method parameter like for all data variables

I really like how Spock displays some differences

Also, this thread is neither for promoting nor bashing Spock.
If you don't like it, don't use it, but please don't spread false-facts about it.

nfa said _he_ likes it and wants to have something similar in Kotlin, so I pointed him at Spockk

&gt; can you share what power asserting features you are missing in Kotest?
no I like the way the official kotlin compiler plugin does it ( copied from groovy wich was inspired by Spock ( first spock than general groovy assertion feature) ), I can use it in kotest. So I’m fine.