How to add custom info to my report?

[anon88444205]

Hi all,

after some hiatus I'm coming back to testing with TC. Now my question is: is it possible to add some information (more precisely, the app version) to the report? I understand that creating a custom reporter would be one way, but is there any more lightweight solution? Also, is it possible to "inherit" a reporter from an existing one? By that I mean that instead of copying all the reporter's code and changing the bits I want, I'd prefer to only say "take all code not present here from that reporter".

[AndreyBelym]

Hello @mbork!

You can use standard Node.js text I/O utilities like console.log and process.stdout.write to output additional information from a running test.

You can take the following approach when implementing a reporter which inherits from another reporter:

import jsonReporterFactory from 'testcafe-reporter-json';

export default function myReporterFactory () {
    var jsonReporter = jsonReporterFactory();

    return Object.assign({}, jsonReporter , {
        reportTaskDone (...args) { // this will override reportTaskDone from JSON reporter
            this.myOwnMethod();

            jsonReporter.reportTaskDone.call(this, ...args); 
        },
         
        myOwnMethod () { // additional methods can be added as well

        }    
    });
}

or use ES6 classes:

import jsonReporterFactory from 'testcafe-reporter-json';

function JSONReporter () { }

JSONReporter.prototype = jsonReporterFactory();

class MyReporter extends JSONReporter {
    reportTaskDone (...args) {
        this.myOwnMethod();

        super.reportTaskDone(...args); 
    }
         
    myOwnMethod () { // additional methods can be added as well
    
    }   
}

export default function () {
    return new MyReporter();
}

[anon88444205]

Hey @AndreyBelym,

and thanks for your answer.

However, I still have some problems.

Do I have to generate a new reporter as per http://devexpress.github.io/testcafe/documentation/extending-testcafe/reporter-plugin/? If yes, that page (and the reporter tooling) should be probably updated.

1. It doesn't mention that npm link must be run with sudo privileges.
2. Apparently there are some things missing from package.json - I had to manually install moment and lodash. Perhaps the authour had them in their global /usr/lib/node_modules?
3. gulp build errored out with eslint - apparently, package.json had an old version of eslint, and for some reason it took my .eslintrc file (one directory higher up the structure).
4. Then (after deleting that .eslintrc file), build still failed with quite a few eslint errors.

Am I doing something wrong?

[AndreyBelym]

Hello again, @mbork!

First of all, you don't have to follow the tutorial to create a reporter plugin. The simplest and fastest way is:

1. Create a directory named testcafe-reporter-REPORTER-NAME.

2. Run npm init inside the created directory.

3. Create the index.js file in the reporters directory with the following content:
   

   module.exports =  () => ({
           noColors: true,
           
           reportTaskStart (startTime, userAgents, testCount) {
               
           },
   
           reportFixtureStart (name, path) {
               
           },
   
           reportTestDone (name, testRunInfo) {
               
           },
   
           reportTaskDone (endTime, passed, warnings) {
               
           }
   });

Let's clarify your points about the reporter generator and the tutorial.

1. I agree that we should note that sudo might be required to use on some systems. You don't need it if you use nvm ow Windows.

2. I can't find a place where lodash is used in a generated provider or in the tutorial. It would be nice if you can point me to it. If you need lodash in your reporter, you have to add it in your package.json. moment can be accessed as a property of the provider object inside the reporting functions, please pay attention that it is accessed as this.moment (not just moment) in the tutorial.

About 3. and 4.: eslint uses a system of cascading config files, so it merges a config file from current directory with config files found in parent directories. It means it's a bit harder to create a new project (e.g.
reporter) in an existing project tree. I recommend you to create a project directly in your home directory, or at least not in in a subdirectory of an already existing project. Unfortunately, I can't say anything about your linting errors without looking on your .eslintrc and provider code.

[anon88444205]

Hi @AndreyBelym,

and thanks for your answer.

I managed to do what I wanted (even without using the reporter generator) - I just copied two of the shipped reporters (spec and json) and modified them to suit my needs.

However, I have another problem now. I have to perform a nasty hack of manually copying my reporters to node_modules after performing yarn install (of course, I scripted this, but now everyone on the team has to remember to run that script after fresh install).

One way to solve this problem would be for TC's reporter function to accept either a string (the reporter name, behavior as before) or a function, which would then be used instead of requireing a suitable module from node_modules.

I could make a PR to do exactly this. Would you accept that?

[MarinaRukavitsyna]

Hello @mbork,

I could make a PR to do exactly this. Would you accept that?

Sure.