Question

Using the built-in Ruby Minitest framework, is there a way to run some code once before the entire suite runs, or even once before an entire TestClass runs? I see in the answer to this question that Test::Unit::after_tests can be used to run code after all tests have been run; is there a similar method to run code before all tests have run?

I would like to use this functionality to initialize a test database before the tests run and tear it down after they have all run.

Thanks!

Answer 1

This is modified from the MiniTest docs (under Customizable Test Runner Types).

class Burger
  def initialize
    puts "YOU CREATED A BURGER"
  end

  def has_cheese?
    true
  end

  def has_pickle?
    false
  end
end

gem 'minitest'

require 'minitest/unit'
MiniTest::Unit.autorun

class MyMiniTest
  class Unit < MiniTest::Unit

    def before_suites
      # code to run before the first test
      p "Before everything"
    end

    def after_suites
      # code to run after the last test
      p "After everything"
    end

    def _run_suites(suites, type)
      begin
        before_suites
        super(suites, type)
      ensure
        after_suites
      end
    end

    def _run_suite(suite, type)
      begin
        suite.before_suite if suite.respond_to?(:before_suite)
        super(suite, type)
      ensure
        suite.after_suite if suite.respond_to?(:after_suite)
      end
    end

  end
end

MiniTest::Unit.runner = MyMiniTest::Unit.new

class BurgerTest < MiniTest::Unit::TestCase

  def self.before_suite
    p "hi"
  end

  def self.after_suite
    p "bye"
  end

  def setup
    @burger = Burger.new
  end

  def test_has_cheese
    assert_equal true, @burger.has_cheese?
  end

  def test_has_pickle
    assert_equal false, @burger.has_pickle?
  end

end

Note that you I included gem 'minitest' to use the gem instead of the bundled version which didn’t have the MiniTest::Unit.runner method. Here’s the output.

Run options: --seed 49053

# Running tests:

"Before everything"
"hi"
YOU CREATED A BURGER
.YOU CREATED A BURGER
."bye"
"After everything"


Finished tests in 0.000662s, 3021.1480 tests/s, 3021.1480 assertions/s.

2 tests, 2 assertions, 0 failures, 0 errors, 0 skips

So it calls #setup twice, but .before_suite and .after_suite only once, which is what you are looking for I think.