Hello folks! I have just started tinkering with `kotest` and I am happy with it thus far, except for...

# kotest

[Ioannis Mavroukakis]

Hello folks! I have just started tinkering with kotest and I am happy with it thus far, except for one little thing that I cannot wrap my head around.

class DummySpec : FreeSpec(
    {
        val mockedBeeper = mockk<Beeper>()

        beforeTest {
            clearAllMocks()
            println("mock cleared")
        }

        "beeper will beep" - {
            "when the stars have aligned" - {
                every { mockedBeeper.beep(any()) } returns "mocked beep"
                "and the moon is high" {
                    mockedBeeper.beep(true) shouldBe "mocked beep"
                }
            }
        }
    },
)

class Beeper {
    fun beep(shouldBeep: Boolean): String = if (shouldBeep) {
        "BEEP"
    } else "shhhhh"
}

this will clear the mock three times, once for each line in the test spec. Is there anyway to use beforeTest but limit it to be executed only for the top test method? Thanks!

[Ioannis Mavroukakis]

pretend there are more test sections in this Spec 😉

[Ioannis Mavroukakis]

this is not limited to FreeSpec of course, it also applies to the BDD-style spec..

[LeoColman]

Take a look at IsolationModes

[LeoColman]

https://kotest.io/docs/framework/isolation-mode.html

[LeoColman]

Maybe that's the kind of thing you want to tweak, the isolation between test scopes

[Ioannis Mavroukakis]

I have, doesn't do what I want

[Ioannis Mavroukakis]

The problem is that beforeTest is executed for every test description 😞

[LeoColman]

Maybe beforeContainer or beforeSpec?

[LeoColman]

Or even clearing mocks after the tests, ordering might play a big role for your case hahah

[Ioannis Mavroukakis]

beforeSpec is too coarse grained, beforeContainer behaves in the same way 😞

[Ioannis Mavroukakis]

essentially I need something that says,
• for each "top level" test description
• run beforeTest once
• and ignore other nested descriptions

[Ioannis Mavroukakis]

makes sense?

[LeoColman]

Yes.
Could you give more details in your use case?
What is your test flow, what are you trying to accomplish?

[LeoColman]

What test you expect to pass but isn't passing sort of speak

[Ioannis Mavroukakis]

basically mockk is complaining because "and the moon is high" runs beforeTest again and splats the mocked object setup

[Ioannis Mavroukakis]

instead, what I want it to do is run beforeTest just once , for when the stars have aligned

[Ioannis Mavroukakis]

and I don't think there is a way to do this.

[Ioannis Mavroukakis]

maybe using clearAllMocks() doesn't make sense here and I need to create them as `val`s

[Ioannis Mavroukakis]

rubber duck in progress

[thanksforallthefish]

you can use clearMockks(answer = false), but in general I agree that it seems to me there is something wrong with your setup

[Ioannis Mavroukakis]

@thanksforallthefish thanks, wrong in what sense though?

[Ioannis Mavroukakis]

it seems to me that for BDD style or FreeSpec tests there should be a way to run beforeTest just once, not once for every nesting level.

[thanksforallthefish]

to me it looks weird you want to clean up stuff before the first test only, it (probably) means somewhere else you have a test that leaves things behind. I think before should be for setup, and after for general verifications and clean up, so seeing a clean up before a test is always weird

[Ioannis Mavroukakis]

hmm perhaps I am not explaining properly..

[Ioannis Mavroukakis]

what I am saying is, that between "beeper will beep" , "when the stars have aligned" and "and the moon is high" , beforeTest gets invoked every time. If this is by design, fine, but it means that any mockk setup in-between them, will get reset

[Ioannis Mavroukakis]

upshot is, you can't be expressive and layer your mocks, everything has to go to the innermost context.

[Ioannis Mavroukakis]

yeah, I agree that clearAlllMocks between tests might be wrong in the first place but when you are translating JUnit based tests to the FreeSpec or BDD styles, it's a weird little gotcha.

[thanksforallthefish]

something like

class DummySpec : FreeSpec(
    {
        val mockedBeeper = mockk<Beeper>()

        "beeper will beep" - {
            clearAllMocks()
            println("mock cleared")
            "when the stars have aligned" - {
                every { mockedBeeper.beep(any()) } returns "mocked beep"
                "and the moon is high" {
                    mockedBeeper.beep(true) shouldBe "mocked beep"
                }
            }
        }
    },
)

class Beeper {
    fun beep(shouldBeep: Boolean): String = if (shouldBeep) {
        "BEEP"
    } else "shhhhh"
}

also clears only once, but ofc does not scale if you have many top level “tests” in your spec.

maybe you should really look at isolation, there might something there. I never fully understood it and felt it opens up for bad practices (somehow we have many many tests all works with default isolation, but we are also not using “crazy” set ups and prefer duplicating stuff in tests to keep them simple)

[Ioannis Mavroukakis]

That was one of my considerations, thanks Marco.