Using vim-test to run dotnet test with core cli tooling
Overview
vim-test is a really cool vim plugin for running tests and getting results within [neo]vim. It has support for many programming languages and test runners.
vim-test also support for a range of "test execution strategies", for example, the make strategy will execute tests using regular :make, and the dispatch strategy will execute tests using :Dispatch.
There are a number of other strategies, both synchronous and asynchronous, so there is a good chance you can fit it into your existing workflow.
Commands
Without going into too much detail vim-test makes available the following commands.
:TestSuite
This runs all the tests in the current suite. I tend to use this when I've finished working on something and want to make sure that all tests are still passing.
:TestFile
This command runs all tests in the current file. This is the command I use most frequently, followed up by a :TestSuite when I'm ready.
:TestNearest
This command runs the test nearest to the cursor, I find this useful when I'm debugging a single failed acceptance test, or any test that is part of a slower suite of tests, and I want to keep running that test over and over while making changes to the test body.
:TestLast
This command runs the last test that was executed, this is pretty handy if you are jumping around files trying to resolve an issue with the most recently failed tests and you want to run the tests again without jumping back to the test file.
:TestVisit
This command returns you to the test file where the last tests were executed from. This is particularly handy for jumping back to a failed test after modifying some code elsewhere.
Some context
vim-test is very easy to extend, it is possible for the above commands to have different context based on the language and test runner being used, for instance, I recently had a PR merged that adds support for C# and the dotnet test runner. The context for the above commands becomes.
:TestSuite
This runs all the tests in current project by walking up the directory structure until it finds a .csproj file to use in it's call to dotnet test.
Example generated commands: dotnet test /home/markwoodhall/code/Project/Tests/Tests.csproj
:TestFile
This command runs all tests in the current .cs file, again walking up the directory structure until it finds a .csproj file to use in it's call to dotnet test. This time we also take the name of the current file to use in the –filter FullyQualifiedName~ option to dotnet test.
Example generated commands: dotnet test /home/markwoodhall/code/Project/Tests/Tests.csproj –filter FulyQualifiedName~MyTestClass
:TestNearest
This command runs the nearest test to the cursor, again walking up the directory structure until it finds a .csproj file to use in it's call to dotnet test. This time we also figure out the nearest test based on regex patterns for the current class or function.
Example generated commands: dotnet test /home/markwoodhall/code/Project/Tests/Tests.csproj –filter FulyQualifiedName~MyTestClass
dotnet test /home/markwoodhall/code/Project/Tests/Tests.csproj –filter FulyQualifiedName~MyTestClass.MyTestMethod
dotnet test /home/markwoodhall/code/Project/Tests/Tests.csproj –filter FulyQualifiedName~MyTestClass.MyTestMethodAsync
Screenshots
Thanks a lot to Janko Marohnić for creating vim-test and for helping with the pull request.