perl test suite for API

Question

I'm writing a perl module that interfaces with an API and I would like to write a test suite for it before putting it up on CPAN. However, because this module is basically just an interface for an API, all tests would require a valid API key and user. Obviously I can't release this module with my API key and username in the test suite, so what is the best way to handle something like this? Should I just test locally and then put it up on CPAN with no tests? Has anyone run into this before and come up with a good solution? I know that writing tests is best practice, so I'd like to do it if I can. Thanks!

Answer 1

Why not wrap the API calls into small functions (e.g. the function does NOTHING but the API call), and then mock those functions in your tests as needed using Test::MockObject or similar?

This would be even better, as you would be able to have tests that test different results from API (failure, auth failure, etc...)

Answer 2

I made it clear in my documentation that my module was useless without an API key, and used skip:{} constructs of Test::More to skip all the tests if the key was not present. You can choose too bail_out instead of skip.

Just insure that your docs explain how to communicate the API key to the module.