How to get active TGUITestRunner from DUnit test?

Question

TGUITestRunner form represents DUnit test results and created once by GUITestRunner.RunTest procedure:

procedure RunTest(test: ITest);
begin
  with TGUITestRunner.Create(nil) do
  begin
    try
      Suite := test;
      ShowModal;
    finally
      Free;
    end;
  end;
end;

I want to extend it at runtime by writing colored status messages. It is possible, because that status messages at the bottom of GUI are placed into TRichEdit. So I need to get the pointer to this form somewhere in my TTestCase.

Can I do that without fixing the DUnit's code? Maybe you can recommend some hack?

That would be going heavily against the grain of the Xunit framework. Test cases and test runners are very decoupled and in particular test cases are designer to know nothing about test runners. — David Heffernan, Mar 12 '12 at 12:38
@DavidHeffernan, I know I must create my own test runner and implement what I need, but maybe it is possible to make this minor fix without spending hours implementing ITestListener. — Andrew, Mar 12 '12 at 12:46

score 1 · Answer 1 · answered Mar 12 '12 at 13:31

A "decoupled" way to do it might be to use some "embedded codes" inside your status messages:

Status('<blue>Testing');

From within the dUnit test framework, you could check if the initial character of a status message is '<', and extract the arguments such as color or whatever else, and then modify dUnit to handle it.

That way, your tests will still run on an unmodified dUnit test runner. Several years from now you might want to move to the latest dUnit test, and I don't recommend making any API changes, or trying to access the test runner objects. The APIs and things you can see from within a test are strictly controlled on purpose. It's a principle of proper object oriented design, which the creators of jUnit/xUnit/dUnit believe in intensely.

Yes, I implemented `IStatusListener` in my own form and can show it up together with the main test GUI by calling `SetStatusListener(MyObjectToDisplayStatus)` at SetUp; however, I wanted to integrate it deeper into GUI, because multiple forms looks sad. — Andrew, Mar 12 '12 at 13:42

How to get active TGUITestRunner from DUnit test?

1 Answers1