Unable to use absolute paths for includes in config file

[mikecbrant]

What are you trying to achieve?

Use absolute path for defining includes in config file

What do you get instead?

Here is error I was getting when running either run or run-multiple:

[1.parallel:chunk1:Nightmare] Could not include object I from module 'C:\Users\a0225521\Documents\git\ticom-mobile\C:\Users\a0225521\Documents\git\ticom-mobile\test\codecept-ui\lib\actor.js'
Cannot find module 'C:\Users\a0225521\Documents\git\ticom-mobile\C:\Users\a0225521\Documents\git\ticom-mobile\test\codecept-ui\lib\actor.js'
[1.parallel:chunk1:Nightmare]
[1.parallel:chunk1:Nightmare] Error: 
    at loadSupportObject (C:\Users\a0225521\Documents\git\ticom-mobile\node_modules\codeceptjs\lib\container.js:203:11)
    at getSupportObject (C:\Users\a0225521\Documents\git\ticom-mobile\node_modules\codeceptjs\lib\container.js:191:12)
    at createSupportObjects (C:\Users\a0225521\Documents\git\ticom-mobile\node_modules\codeceptjs\lib\container.js:148:21)
    at Function.create (C:\Users\a0225521\Documents\git\ticom-mobile\node_modules\codeceptjs\lib\container.js:33:25)
    at Codecept.init (C:\Users\a0225521\Documents\git\ticom-mobile\node_modules\codeceptjs\lib\codecept.js:52:15)
    at Command.module.exports (C:\Users\a0225521\Documents\git\ticom-mobile\node_modules\codeceptjs\lib\command\run.js:35:14)
    at Command.listener (C:\Users\a0225521\Documents\git\ticom-mobile\node_modules\commander\index.js:315:8)
    at Command.emit (events.js:127:13)
    at Command.parseArgs (C:\Users\a0225521\Documents\git\ticom-mobile\node_modules\commander\index.js:651:12)
    at Command.parse (C:\Users\a0225521\Documents\git\ticom-mobile\node_modules\commander\index.js:474:21)

You will note the main working directory is prepended an extra time to the values derived from my config file below.

I was able to track this down to the following code in lib/step.php (from change introduced in PR #1094)

const support = Config.get('include', {});
if (support) {
  for (const name in support) {
    const file = support[name];
    support[name] = path.join(global.codecept_dir, file);
  }
}

This change seems to inadvertently change entire Codecept class config in that is directly modifies Codecept.config values for each include by blindly concatenating the global.codecept_dir value to the beginning of the existing values. Since a reference to the object itself is sent in Config.get() the config is modified in place as opposed to having the operation made against a copy of the configuration.

I had only noticed this change when updating npm to pull directly from this GitHub repo (so as to take on my recently merged change prior to next package release). So I wanted to make sure and raise this issue before this change gets into next package release.

I did not propose a fix here, as I am not sure whether it was intended for the config to actually be modified here, in which case perhaps the prepending logic probable needs to include path resolution, or whether your were strictly trying to work from a copy of the config, in which case perhaps Config.get() need to use Object.assign() or similar, our a Config.copy() method need to be introduced.

Details

• CodeceptJS version: Latest repo master version
• NodeJS Version: 9.6
• Operating System: Windows 7
• Protractor || WebDriverIO || Nightmare version (if related)
• Configuration file:

'use strict';

process.on('unhandledRejection', () => {
    console.log('Suppressed unhandled promise rejection. This is probably because an assertion failed.');
});

const path = require('path');
const ROOT_DIR = path.resolve(__dirname).split(path.sep + 'test')[0];
const TEST_DIR = path.join(ROOT_DIR, 'test', 'codecept-ui');
const LIB_DIR = path.join(TEST_DIR, 'lib');
const FRAGMENT_DIR = path.join(TEST_DIR, 'fragments');
const PAGE_DIR = path.join(TEST_DIR, 'pages');
const OUTPUT_DIR = path.join(ROOT_DIR, 'test-output');
const testUrl = 'http://localhost:8080';
const appRunner = require(path.join(LIB_DIR, 'app-runner'));
const testPattern = path.relative(ROOT_DIR, path.join(TEST_DIR, '*-test.js'));
const timeout = 10000;

const getRunCommand = () => {
    let runCommandIsNext = false;
    const codeceptRegex = /codecept\.js$/;
    for (const arg of process.argv) {
        if (runCommandIsNext === true) {
            return arg;
        }

        if (codeceptRegex.test(arg)) {
            runCommandIsNext = true;
        }
    }
};

const runCommand = getRunCommand();

const noOp = () => {};

exports.config = {
    output: OUTPUT_DIR,
    helpers: {
        Nightmare: {
            url: testUrl,
            waitForTimeout: timeout
        },
        NightmareExtended: {
            require: path.join(LIB_DIR, 'nightmare-extended-helper.js')
        }
    },
    include: {
        I: path.join(LIB_DIR, 'actor.js'),
        desktopToggleFragment: path.join(FRAGMENT_DIR, 'desktop-toggle.js'),
        headFragment: path.join(FRAGMENT_DIR, 'head.js'),
        headerNavMenuFragment: path.join(FRAGMENT_DIR, 'header-nav-menu.js'),
        headerSearchFragment: path.join(FRAGMENT_DIR, 'header-search.js'),
        languageToggleFragment: path.join(FRAGMENT_DIR, 'language-toggle.js'),
        page404: path.join(PAGE_DIR, '404.js'),
        homePage: path.join(PAGE_DIR, 'homepage.js'),
        offlinePage: path.join(PAGE_DIR, 'offline.js'),
        productFamilyOverviewPage: path.join(PAGE_DIR, 'product-family-overview.js'),
        productFamilyProductsPage: path.join(PAGE_DIR, 'product-family-products.js'),
        productFolder: path.join(PAGE_DIR, 'product-folder.js'),
        productFolderDescription: path.join(PAGE_DIR, 'product-folder-description.js'),
        productFolderSamplebuy: path.join(PAGE_DIR, 'product-folder-samplebuy.js'),
        productFolderTechnicaldocuments: path.join(PAGE_DIR, 'product-folder-technicaldocuments.js'),
        productFolderToolssoftware: path.join(PAGE_DIR, 'product-folder-toolssoftware.js')
    },
    bootstrap: (runCommand === 'run') ? appRunner.startApp : noOp,
    teardown: (runCommand === 'run') ? appRunner.closeApp : noOp,
    bootstrapAll: appRunner.startApp,
    teardownAll: appRunner.closeApp,
    hooks: [],
    tests: testPattern,
    timeout: timeout,
    name: 'ticom-mobile',
    multiple: {
        parallel: {
            chunks: (files) => {
                return files[0].reduce(
                    (arr, file) => {
                        arr.push([ file ]);
                        return arr;
                    },
                    []
                );
            },
            browsers: ['Nightmare']
        }
    }
};

[mikecbrant]

For the time, I have just reverted to using relative paths in my conf file and everything runs fine.

I looking further at code, it seems that throughout, global.codecept_dir is commonly prepended to relative paths simply via path,join(). So it seems clear that relative path is really the expected means to pass references to files (at least those used with DI container.)

Considering that, I would guess this might no so much be an issue as it might be a feature request, either to update documentation around mandatory use of relative path in conf file include section, our to perhaps create common utility function to replace most/all path.join() prepends with functionality that would handle absolute paths.

I like the idea of absolute paths, for being able to load test objects from shared libraries that might not be under the test root.

[DavertMik]

Yeah, I think absolute paths should be supported. If you already looked into the code, could you send a pull request for that feature?