code suddenly dosen't pass rspec anymore...need fresh eyes

Question

I had this code passing ALL the specs the other day, so I moved it into another folder (for completed assignments). When I tried to run the specs again on it from there, I couldn't get the file to load despite typing the path exactly (several times) as I saw it. Hmmmm. Is there some special way to run rspecs from a subfolder?? Anyways, So I moved it back to the main directory it was in, and tried from there, and suddenly it would't pass!! I must have accidentally deleted something. But for the life of me after almost two days...I just DON'T SEE IT. I've gone through it a million times and it seems like it should be working, and when I take the methods out of the class they return as expected. I need fresh eyes. Why is this code suddenly not passing?

class :: Timer
  attr_accessor :seconds, :padded, :time_string

  def initialize(seconds = 0)
    @seconds = seconds
  end 

  def padded(num)
    num = num.to_s
    num.length == 1 ? "0#{num}" : "#{num}"
  end

  def time_string=(seconds)
    @seconds = seconds
    mins = 0
    hours = 0

    if seconds == 0 
      return "00:00:00"
    elsif seconds < 60
      return "00:00:#{padded(seconds)}"
    end

    while seconds > 59
      mins += 1
      seconds -= 60
      if mins > 59
         hours += 1
         mins -= 60
      end  
    end#while
  return "#{padded(hours)}:#{padded(mins)}:#{padded(seconds)}"
  end
end#class

Here are the specs:

require_relative '09_timer'

describe "Timer" do
  before(:each) do
    @timer = Timer.new
  end


  it "should initialize to 0 seconds" do
    @timer.seconds.should == 0
  end

  describe 'time_string' do
    it "should display 0 seconds as 00:00:00" do
      @timer.seconds = 0
      @timer.time_string.should == "00:00:00"
    end

    it "should display 12 seconds as 00:00:12" do
      @timer.seconds = 12
      @timer.time_string.should == "00:00:12"
    end

    it "should display 66 seconds as 00:01:06" do
      @timer.seconds = 66
      @timer.time_string.should == "00:01:06"
    end

    it "should display 4000 seconds as 01:06:40" do
      @timer.seconds = 4000
      @timer.time_string.should == "01:06:40"
    end
  end



  # One way to implement the Timer is with a helper method.
  # Uncomment these specs if you want to test-drive that
  # method, then call that method from inside of time_string.
  #
  describe 'padded' do
     it 'pads zero' do
       @timer.padded(0).should == '00'
     end
     it 'pads one' do
       @timer.padded(1).should == '01'
     end
     it "doesn't pad a two-digit number" do
       @timer.padded(12).should == '12'
     end
   end

end

Answer 1

class :: Timer
  attr_accessor :seconds

  def initialize(seconds = 0)
    @seconds = seconds
  end

  def padded(num)
    num = num.to_s
    num.length == 1 ? "0#{num}" : "#{num}"
  end

  def time_string
    seconds = @seconds
    mins = 0
    hours = 0

    if seconds == 0
      return "00:00:00"
    elsif seconds < 60
      return "00:00:#{padded(seconds)}"
    end

    while seconds > 59
      mins += 1
      seconds -= 60
      if mins > 59
         hours += 1
         mins -= 60
      end
    end#while
  return "#{padded(hours)}:#{padded(mins)}:#{padded(seconds)}"
  end
end#class

Specs

require_relative '09_timer'

describe "Timer" do
  before(:each) do
    @timer = Timer.new
  end


  it "should initialize to 0 seconds" do
    expect(@timer.seconds).to eq 0
  end

  describe 'time_string' do
    it "should display 0 seconds as 00:00:00" do
      @timer.seconds = 0
      expect(@timer.time_string).to eq "00:00:00"
    end

    it "should display 12 seconds as 00:00:12" do
      @timer.seconds = 12
      expect(@timer.time_string).to eq "00:00:12"
    end

    it "should display 66 seconds as 00:01:06" do
      @timer.seconds = 66
      expect(@timer.time_string).to eq "00:01:06"
    end

    it "should display 4000 seconds as 01:06:40" do
      @timer.seconds = 4000
      expect(@timer.time_string).to eq "01:06:40"
    end
  end



  # One way to implement the Timer is with a helper method.
  # Uncomment these specs if you want to test-drive that
  # method, then call that method from inside of time_string.
  #
  describe 'padded' do
     it 'pads zero' do
       expect(@timer.padded(0)).to eq '00'
     end
     it 'pads one' do
       expect(@timer.padded(1)).to eq '01'
     end
     it "doesn't pad a two-digit number" do
       expect(@timer.padded(12)).to eq '12'
     end
   end

end

I don't really know how your code got messed up, but the time_string method isn't taking any arguments in your specs, and I don't see why it would just from a logical perspective. Therefore I took out the =(seconds) part from its method signature.

You were also setting the instance variable @seconds to the passed argument, but really we want to use a local seconds variable that starts out as the instance variable, so that just gets flipped around to seconds = @seconds.

Lastly, I changed your specs to use the new expect syntax instead of should which is now deprecated.