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I am just getting started learning nightwatchjs to test my webapp. I need to call a 'setup' and a 'teardown' script before and after everything else, respectively. These scripts create the necessary conditions in the database for the tests to run (creating test licenses, users, etc), and remove them afterward. I have an API call in my app that triggers these.

In globals.js, you can set before and after methods that should execute before and after everything else, and also a beforeEach and afterEach that should execute before and after each test suite, if I'm not mistaken. It seems the beforeEach and afterEach methods accept as arguments a browser object and a done callback. The before and after methods, however, only get the done callback.

In a particular test suite, the same four methods can be added, but in this case, the before and after run before everything and after everything, respectively, and the beforeEach and afterEach run before and after each individual test in the suite.

Ideally, I would call my setup and teardown scripts in the global before and after methods, but those do not get an instance of nightwatch (browser), so I don't know how I'd do that.

I am able to fire off the 'setup' call just fine, in my globals beforeEach method. This isn't ideal for me, but it would still work, it would just be a but superfluous (calling it before each test suite rather than just once before everything).

However, I run into issues when I try to call the teardown script from my globals afterEach method. When I run my test, the output hangs at the end, until I hit CTRL+C.

Here is my nightwatch.conf.js:

const seleniumServer = require("selenium-server");
const chromedriver = require("chromedriver");


// we use a nightwatch.conf.js file so we can include comments and helper functions
module.exports = {
    "src_folders": [
        "tests",
    ],
    "page_objects_path": './pages',
    "globals_path": "./globals.js",
    "output_folder": "./reports", // reports (test outcome) output by nightwatch
    "custom_commands_path" : "./commands",
    "selenium": {
        "start_process": true, // tells nightwatch to start/stop the selenium process
        "server_path": seleniumServer.path,
        "host": "127.0.0.1",
        "port": 4444, // standard selenium port
        "cli_args": {
            "webdriver.chrome.driver" : chromedriver.path
        }
    },
    "test_settings": {
        "default": {
            "silent": true,
            "launchUrl": 'http://local.mytestwebsite.com',
            "screenshots": {
                "enabled": true, // if you want to keep screenshots
                "path": "./screenshots/" // save screenshots here
            },
            "globals": {
                "waitForConditionTimeout": 5000 // sometimes internet is slow so wait.
            },
            "desiredCapabilities": { // use Chrome as the default browser for tests
                "browserName": "chrome",
                "chromeOptions": {
                    "args": [
                        "window-size=1366,768",
                        "--incognito"
                    ]
                }
            }
        }
    }
}

Here is my globals.js:

var chromedriver = require('chromedriver');
module.exports = {


    beforeEach: function(browser, done) {
        console.log('Executing the global `beforeEach`');

        browser.url('http://www.vulfpeck.com');
        browser.expect.element('body').to.be.present;
        browser.end();

        // getting the session info
        browser.status(function(result) {
            console.log("Session Info: ", result.value);
            done();
        });
    },


    afterEach: function(browser, done){
        console.log('Executing the global `afterEach`');

        browser.url('http://www.vulfpeck.com');
        browser.expect.element('body').to.be.present;
        browser.end();

        // getting the session info
        browser.status(function(result) {
            console.log("Session Info: ", result.value);
            done();
        });
    },


    before: function(done) {
        console.log('Executing the global `before`');
        console.log('starting the chromedriver');
        chromedriver.start();
        done();
    },


    after: function(done) {
        console.log('Executing the global `after`');
        console.log('stoppin the chromedriver');
        chromedriver.stop();
        done();
    }
};

And here is my test suite:

module.exports = {
    'Test 1': function(browser){
        browser.url('http://www.google.com');
        browser.expect.element('body').to.be.present;
        browser.end();
    },
    'Test 2': function(browser){
        browser.url('http://www.vulfpeck.com');
        browser.expect.element('body').to.be.present;
        browser.end();
    },
    before: function(browser, done){
        console.log('test before');
        done();
    },
    beforeEach: function(browser, done){
        console.log('test beforeEach');
        done();
    },
    after: function(browser, done){
        console.log('test after');
        done();
    },
    afterEach: function(browser, done){
        console.log('test afterEach');
        done();
    }
};

Here is the output. 

$ nightwatch
Executing the global `before`
starting the chromedriver
Starting selenium server... started - PID:  11772

[Login] Test Suite
======================
Executing the global `beforeEach`
 √ Expected element <body> to be present - element was present in 31ms
Session Info:  { ready: true,
  message: 'Server is running',
  build:
   { revision: '63f7b50',
     time: '2018-02-07T22:42:28.403Z',
     version: '3.9.1' },
  os: { arch: 'amd64', name: 'Windows 10', version: '10.0' },
  java: { version: '9' } }
test before

Running:  Test 1
test beforeEach
 √ Expected element <body> to be present - element was present in 30ms
test afterEach

OK. 1 assertions passed. (3.56s)

Running:  Test 2
test beforeEach
 √ Expected element <body> to be present - element was present in 20ms
test afterEach

OK. 1 assertions passed. (2.503s)
test after
Executing the global `afterEach`
Session Info:  { ready: true,
  message: 'Server is running',
  build:
   { revision: '63f7b50',
     time: '2018-02-07T22:42:28.403Z',
     version: '3.9.1' },
  os: { arch: 'amd64', name: 'Windows 10', version: '10.0' },
  java: { version: '9' } }
 × Expected element <body> to be present - element was not found  - expected "present" but got: "not present"
    at Object.afterEach (C:\sites\mytestwebsite.com\selenium\globals.js:29:21)

So, am I missing something? Why can I not hit a URL in the global afterEach method without it hanging? (I just figured out that if I remove the browser.end(); from my last test in the suite, my global afterEach will work just fine. Why is this?). Is there some other recommended way of hitting a URL before and after running all tests?

Thanks! Any help is appreciated!

Gary Reckard
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1 Answers1

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While I haven't completely answered my own question, I have come up with an alternate way to call my setup and teardown scripts in the globals before and after hooks.

For this, I have installed the node libarary child_process (by typing npm install child_process), which allows me to execute commands on the command line.

In my globals.js, I am requiring that library at the top:

const { exec } = require('child_process');

And in my before and after hooks, I am using it like so:

exec('php ../run.php api selenium setup', (err, stdout, stderr) => {
            if (err) {
                // node couldn't execute the command
                console.log("node couldn't execute the command",err);
                done();
                return;
            }

            // the *entire* stdout and stderr (buffered)
            console.log(`stdout: ${stdout}`);
            console.log(`stderr: ${stderr}`);
            done();
        });

Hope this helps someone.

Gary Reckard
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