Catalyst + FormFu + Test::WWW::Mechanize::Catalyst = Kablooey

[matija]

I have a test file that goes somewhat like this:

#!/usr/bin/perl -w
use strict;

use FindBin;
use lib "$FindBin::Bin/../lib";
use lib "$FindBin::Bin/../Myapp/lib/";

#use Test::MockObject; 
use Test::WWW::Mechanize::Catalyst;
use Test::More tests=>12;

use DateTime;
use DateTime::Duration;

my $mech = Test::WWW::Mechanize::Catalyst->new(catalyst_app => 'Myapp'
+);
# more tests make no difference

If the use Test::MockObject is commented out, everything works, and the test passes. But if the line is NOT commented out, I get

Deep recursion on subroutine "HTML::FormFu::base::render" at /usr/shar
+e/perl5/HTML/FormFu/Element.pm line 34.
Deep recursion on subroutine "UNIVERSAL::can::can" at /usr/share/perl5
+/UNIVERSAL/isa.pm line 60.
Deep recursion on subroutine "UNIVERSAL::isa" at /usr/share/perl5/UNIV
+ERSAL/can.pm line 43.
Deep recursion on subroutine "UNIVERSAL::can::can" at /usr/share/perl5
+/HTML/FormFu/Element/_Field.pm line 158.
Deep recursion on subroutine "UNIVERSAL::isa" at /usr/share/perl5/UNIV
+ERSAL/can.pm line 43.
Deep recursion on subroutine "HTML::FormFu::Element::Block::string" at
+ /usr/share/perl5/HTML/FormFu/base.pm line 15.
Deep recursion on subroutine "HTML::FormFu::Element::_Input::string" a
+t /usr/share/perl5/HTML/FormFu/base.pm line 15.
Deep recursion on subroutine "HTML::FormFu::Element::render_data" at /
+usr/share/perl5/HTML/FormFu/Element/_Input.pm line 39.
Deep recursion on subroutine "HTML::FormFu::Element::_Input::render_da
+ta_non_recursive" at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/FormFu/Element.pm line 190
+.
Deep recursion on subroutine "HTML::FormFu::Element::_Field::render_da
+ta_non_recursive" at /usr/lib/perl/5.10/mro.pm line 28.
Deep recursion on subroutine "HTML::FormFu::Element::_Field::nested_na
+me" at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/FormFu/Element/_Field.pm line 606.
Deep recursion on subroutine "HTML::FormFu::Element::_Field::nested_na
+mes" at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/FormFu/Element/_Field.pm line 130.
Deep recursion on anonymous subroutine at /usr/share/perl5/UNIVERSAL/i
+sa.pm line 35.

If I edit the controller and replace use base 'Catalyst::Controller::HTML::FormFu'; with use parent 'Catalyst::Controller'; then the Test::WWW::Mechanize::Catalyst object is allocated correctly, but, of course, nothing relying on FormFu works anymore.

Anybody ran into this before? Any ideas what this could be? Any ideas for work-arounds?

[zby]

How about trying using HTML::FormFu directly? As far as I remember Catalyst::Controller::HTML::FormFu only loads a specified config file - but it is trivial to do that directly. Personally - I gave up with FormFu and use HTML::FormHandler by the way.

[Your Mother]

I echo zby's comments. I had the FormFu Controller auto-config-loader clash with another module (the REST Controller) and I was able to get them to cohabitate peacefully by doing the config manually.

[matija]

Can you show me how? I tried replacing the Catalyst/FormFu controller with a method of "use HTML::FormFu", and the problem persists.

[Your Mother]

I think this is all I did but the code has moved a bit (REST is out for now but it was working with it in)-

package MyApp::Controller::User;
use strict;
use warnings;
use parent 'Catalyst::Controller::HTML::FormFu';

sub register : Local Args(0) Form {
    my ( $self, $c ) = @_;
    my $form = $self->form();
    $form->load_config_filestem("user/register");

    # et cetera...
}

[matija]

Well, I've done some more digging, even up to creating a new catalyst project to see if I can figure out where the conflict occurs by adding stuff instead of commenting them out.

I finally decided that the problem was not FormFu, but Test::MockObject. While tests where I had Test::WWW::Mechanize::Catalyst and Test::MockObject (but not FormFu) passed, if I tried to enter them with a debugger, allocating the mech object crashed.

So I tried getting rid of Test::MockObject, and considering I only needed to mock a single method, I was able to do it with an assignment to %INC and a sub MyApp::Foo::Bar {...} declaration.

I'll see if I can do all the tests I need in conjunction with Catalyst modules without using MockObject.

But I want to thank the people who drew my attention to FormHandler. I may not use it in this project, but I think I'm going to use it in something soon...