hello. I am facing a "possibly" simple issue. How ...

# kotest

[Moritz Post]

hello. I am facing a "possibly" simple issue. How would i initialise the class under test before each test run in a ShouldSpec test? I have a test like the one below but i do not know how to correctly initialize the engine. I don't want to change the isolation mode as i would like to do some other data loading once upfront (to feed the engine).

class EngineTest : ShouldSpec({

    val engineInput = loadExpensiveInput()

    // does not work and lateinit is not available
    var engine: Engine
    
    beforeEach {
        engine = Engine(engineInput)
    }

    should("be ready") {
        engine.ready shouldBe true
    }
}

[Davio]

This way is how it is usually done if you want to have a new engine for each test

[Moritz Post]

@Davio Which way would that be?

[Davio]

Well, what is your goal? If your goals is to initialize the engine for each test, then putting it inside beforeEach is usually how it's done

[Moritz Post]

where would i store the variable to reference in a test?

[Moritz Post]

i don't want to make it nullable

[Davio]

You can use lateinit here for Engine

[Moritz Post]

unfortunately not because lateinit is only available for class properties not for regular vars (as is the case in the block here).

[Davio]

Eeuhm, it works in my code?

[Moritz Post]

Ok, you are right. it was an error on my side 🫣

[Davio]

https://kotlinlang.org/docs/properties.html#late-initialized-properties-and-variables

[Davio]

This specifies that it does also work for local variables

[Moritz Post]

indeed. thanks for bringing that up again 👍