Get currently executed test name in beforeEach

[nikku]

TLDR; Is there a way to get the currently executed test case (its description derived from describe / it) in a beforeEach block?

What for?

Assuming I have a test runner that performs some sort of visual job on the screen (e.g. drawing SVG elements).

I provide each test case with a container to draw on and want the result to be inspectable by a user. In addition, I would like to add a caption to each of the tests, so that the user can easier keep track of which drawing result belongs to which test execution.

[stoeffel]

You can try this:

describe('TestCase', function() {
    var mySpec = it('should return the spec', function() {
        console.log(mySpec);
        expect(mySpec.getFullName()).toEqual('TestCase should return the spec');
    });
});

[nikku]

Nice to see that there is a way to access the spec created by it().
That does not quite satisfy my use case thought.
In fact, I'd like to access my spec in a beforeEach block like this:

describe('specs', function() {

  beforeEach(function() {

    // get current spec
    // append <h1>{{ currentSpec.getFullName() }}</h1> before spec runs
  });

  it('should append elements to body', function() { /* */ });

  it('should append some other elements to body', function() { /* */ });
});

Any ideas?

[stoeffel]

I don't think that there is a way to get the current spec in the beforeEach callback.
Sorry.

[infews]

It would be good testing practice to inject a DOM selector into your drawing function. I could imagine a test helper that makes unique DOM ids and you can call that helper in each spec. You shouldn't need to get ahold of the spec to do this.

As for captioning, you could build a reporter - and add it in boot.js that finds the current spec DOM id an captions it after the fact with the spec name. Look at the HtmlReporter and see how it builds the spec name for the links in the runner.

I think this helper/reporter combo could be a generally useful add-on. Good idea.

ps: there may be more suggestions on the mailing list: jasmine-js@googlegroups.com

[nikku]

Thanks for the suggestions @infews.

As it turns out a custom reporter can easily be abused as a test environment 😃.

var JsApiReporter = jasmine.JsApiReporter;

function Env(options) {
  JsApiReporter.call(this, options);

  this.specStarted = function(result) {
    this.currentSpec = result;

    var label = document.createElement('div');
    label.innerHTML = result.fullName;

    document.body.appendChild(label);
  };

  this.specDone = function(result) {
    this.currentSpec = null;
  };
}

Need to register it with jasmine, too:

var environment = new Env({
  timer: new jasmine.Timer()
});
jasmine.getEnv().addReporter(environment);

The reporter will be notified by Jasmine and print a caption before each executed test case.
In my tests I can now access the current environment via environment.currentSpec. I could also provide a HTML element to draw into from inside my tests.

[infews]

It looks like you're using Jasmine 1.3? Is that right? With 2.0 the interface has changed a little, making currentSpec harder to get (on purpose). So caveat emptor.

Can we close this issue?

[nikku]

The above example is running fine against Jasmine 2.0.

[nikku]

Just in case anyone is interested: I created the library jasmine-test-container-support that provides test containers + captioning for Jasmine 2.0.

[EvHaus]

I find I'm struggling without this feature as well. My use case for needing the spec name is a bit different than @nikku's. In my case, I have about 100 it() tests which all share the same 250 lines of code. So the beforeEach() statement makes total sense. However, I have 2 tests (in those 100) where I need an additional extra variable configured in my 250 lines of beforeEach code.

Sure. I can just have those 2 tests duplicate the 250 lines of code and not use the beforeEach(), but that's a lot of code duplication, and it also requires me to move them out into a separate describe() block -- putting those tests out of context.

It would be fantastic if each it() test could pass a configuration variable into its beforeEach() call somehow.

Any suggestions?

[EvAlex]

👍 such failure not to have this feature