Error: "app.match is not a function" when --app begins with "-"

[krukow]

Example reproduction:

$ mobile-center test run uitest --app "-a-/app" \
   --devices 12345678 --app-path MyDrivingiOS.ipa \
   --test-series "master" --locale "en_US" \
   --build-dir  MyDriving/MyDriving.UITests/bin/Debug \
   --uitest-tools-dir packages/Xamarin.UITest.2.1.3/tools
Preparing tests... done.
Error: app.match is not a function

[christav]

As a workaround, you can specify the argument like this instead:

mobile-center test run uitest --app="-a-/app" \
   --devices 12345678 --app-path MyDrivingiOS.ipa \
   --test-series "master" --locale "en_US" \
   --build-dir  MyDriving/MyDriving.UITests/bin/Debug \
   --uitest-tools-dir packages/Xamarin.UITest.2.1.3/tools

Note the use of "=" instead of a space separating the --app flag from its argument.

The underlying cause of this appears to be an issue with the way we're parsing the command line arguments, the app name is being parsed as a "-a" switch. The "=" syntax works around this.

[christav]

So thinking on this further, I think using = in cases like this is the best we're going to get. looking at the rules for parsing gnu-style long arguments this is what's supposed to happen - this case is simply ambiguous.

I'm currently thinking that this is best handled via documentation or a change to appcenter so that app/user names can't start with a -.

[amchew]

Hi @krukow ! We've documented the workaround in the CLI docs (thanks to @hilts-vaughan for the submission 👍 !). I'll be closing this ticket for now, let us know if you have any other feedback. Hope all is good :)