Allow clues to be added to timeouts

[sschuberth]

It would be nice if there was a way to also give a clue when a timeout occurs (configured either via withTimeout() or the test configuration). A use-case would be tests that call external programs. Such programs might run interactive prompts, blocking the test, which then runs into a timeout. In such cases stdout could be shown as a clue, which would help to identify the interactive prompt.

[stale]

This issue has been automatically marked as stale because it has not had recent activity. It will be closed if no further activity occurs. Thank you for your contributions.

[sschuberth]

This has just recently been referred to, so I believe it should stay open.

[sksamuel]

It's in the roadmap. I've marked it as pinned.

[sksamuel]

How do you see this working?
If I have a test that I set a timeout for 10 seconds and it times out - it will throw a timeout exception so you know why it failed. What extra information would you like in there ?

[sschuberth]

What extra information would you like in there ?

See above (at the example of a CLI program that causes a timeout due to waiting for stdin): "In such cases stdout could be shown as a clue, which would help to identify the interactive prompt."

[sksamuel]

Right, so this is specific to stdin in timeouts.
Kotest would have to capture stdout in case the test times out.

I wonder if another construct makes sense.

withStdOutClue { }

Which captures std out and emits it as a clue if the test fails.

[sschuberth]

I wasn't meaning to suggest such a specific change to be done to Kotest. But as some one who writes test with Kotest, I'd like to be able to "manually" pass any clue that I see fit to withTimeout(). At the time I filed this issue, I could not see a way to do that (e.g. by nesting withTimeout() inside withClue()).

[sksamuel]

ohhh I see.

Right, that sounds like a really good idea.

[sksamuel]

You can now next withTimeout inside a withClue,

  withClue("timey timey") {
     withTimeout(2) {
        delay(1000)
     }
  }