Help with stateful testing

Hi there,

What if I need to be able to use the result of run() of one Command to provide state that subsequent Command(s) can use?

A very simple example would be if you had an API with two methods; one returns a random number, and another API call requires you to pass that number back to retrieve some value. I'd like to add the random number retrieved in run() to the state, so that subsequent Command objects can check for its existence and run the retrieval Command against that particular number. In this case, since its a random number being returned, I cannot 'simulate' this in the test suite; I cannot use nextState(), since it does not have access to the result of run(). Is this on purpose, and if so am I just thinking about this all wrong?

The bigger picture is that running sequences of commands where a Command later in a sequence depends on the results of previous commands is something I'm having trouble understanding how to do; at least when the result of running a Command isn't something I can simulate, because I simply don't know whats going to be returned to me.

Start by reading the stateful-testing API around Command.run and nextState, then trace how state is passed between sequential Commands. Define how a run() result could become state visible to later Commands and how that behavior could be tested; the issue is done when dependent sequences can use an unpredictable prior result.