Run individual Detox test

[CodingItWrong]

Running detox test runs all tests in the suite. Is there a way to run a subset of the tests? A single test file, or a single test case.

I've configured Detox to use Mocha as the test runner, as per the docs. I know that Mocha has a -g option to specify a pattern for the tests to run. But options passed to the detox command don't seem to be passed along to mocha (which makes sense):

# detox test -g mytestcase

error: unknown option `-g'

I can use Mocha's .only() function to designate one it() or describe() to run—but that involves changes in the source code. It would be great if I could have the option to use a command-line argument to specify which test to run instead. That would certainly be test-runner-specific, of course—so I think providing a way to pass arbitrary command-line arguments from detox test along to the test could be good.

I'm attempting to use Detox for TDD, and the quicker the feedback I can get, the better. As my test suite grows, it would become less and less motivating to run tests as I develop if the time to run gets longer and longer.

[rotemmiz]

It may be a good idea to passthrough command line arguments to test runners.
As always, this is a really good PR candidate :)

[CodingItWrong]

OK great, I will investigate! (I meant to say that.) This feels like it'd be an easier PR to start with than my #518 proposa.

[kdenz]

This is needed by our team as well!

[heuism]

you can use cucumber like i did for as the test runner. with Cucumber, there is a tag for the scenario and therefore can run your specific test case with the tag.

[rwgatorfan]

My team could also use this

[jeremyeaton89]

just curious to understand pros and cons of passing this particular flag to the test runners vs just overriding testFolder, like this, if anyone has insight

[kylethebaker]

This is something that I think is really important to have given how long some of the tests can take to run.

[sinewave440hz]

arbitrary command-line arguments from detox test, yes please! :) I'm using jest and have much more success with my tests when running detox test than using the jest runner directly. This would be a very useful enhancement.

[juddey]

This'd be a real time-saver :)

[kdenz]

Would be great if this is supported soon :)

[CodingItWrong]

Update to anyone who finds this issue, I've ended up less available than I thought. Anyone else is welcome to pick up this issue.

In the meantime in Mocha using it.only() and describe.only() is probably your best bet. https://mochajs.org/#exclusive-tests

[nezaidu]

+1

[wildseansy]

another temporary workaround is you can edit the e2e/mocha.opts, and add a --grep argument or --file to only run a test file matching a certain string

[lukasgjetting]

Has work been started on this? If not, I will start working on it.

[CodingItWrong]

I haven't started work on this or heard of anyone who has. FYI though this PR implements something related that is Jest-specific. It's probably worth looking into how it's implemented to see if this issue is still needed: #1083

[lukasgjetting]

Seems like a solution has already been implemented in #1025.

Though it hasn't been released yet. Does anyone know the release schedule?

[jeremyeaton89]

There's currently a way to run a single test.. e.g. detox test -c ios -f /path/to/file

[CodingItWrong]

@jeremyeaton89 Nice, thanks for adding us and for letting us know! I'm closing this issue as the -f option satisfies just what I was looking for.