Dot Sourcing in test fixture not practical for all scripts about pester HOT 5 CLOSED

In case it helps anybody, you can add this little incantation to BeforeAll to import functions from a script without executing it.

function Get-Functions($filePath)
{
    $script = Get-Command $filePath
    return $script.ScriptBlock.AST.FindAll({ $args[0] -is [Management.Automation.Language.FunctionDefinitionAst] }, $false)
}

Get-Functions ScriptPath.ps1 | Invoke-Expression

from pester.

Hi Andy, I'm considering closing this issue. It looks like you found a workaround in your SO question and I don't necessarily think this is something that Pester itself needs to solve. You can always using the Get-Functions command in your Tests.ps1 file to get the functions.

Perhaps this requires more discussion on testing strategies in PowerShell. In the example you provided I would simply move those functions into a separate file. Then you can simply dot source and not need the Get-Functions function.

End-to-end acceptance tests is something I'm trying to figure out how to do with Pester.

from pester.

wrt moving functions into their own file - I think the testing framework should support the various ways that PowerShell allows you to organize your code. I see it as a limitation to force a certain style of code organization.

Having function code and non-function code in the same PowerShell script is perfectly valid. It also makes dissemination easier as it only requires a single file.

It would be nice to have this built into the framework so that it has support for this scenario out of the box.

I'm thinking perhaps instead of -
$sut = (Split-Path -Leaf $MyInvocation.MyCommand.Path).Replace(".Tests.", ".")
. "$here$sut"

There could be a built in function (like "Describe") for importing (Imports maybe) that does the job of the above and also only brings in the functions with the Get-Functions command.

This only works however when the functions are autonomous (work without variables created in higher scopes). Though I think this isn't too much to ask because this is a best practice for functions anyway.

from pester.

Thanks for the well articulated points.

I'm tempted to spin this off as a separate project. This project would include functions like:

Require
and
Require-Relative

This way it can be used by other projects besides Pester. How does this sound? I really like the point about Pester not limit the style on how you organize your code. So as long as you can load your functions from a Pester Tests file (using any loading lib), than it should be fine.

I like how python makes this easy by having a conventional function for script execution vs import. How would this be handled by ruby, perl, or any other scripting language?

from pester.

Closing. I think this would make for an excellent project. eg: ImportPS or something. Create a module, and I'll happily add a dependency to Pester.

from pester.