Debugging

How to debug scenarios.

Writing tests especially in the beginning is not easy. That is why framework is developed with debugging in mind.

Service responsible for debugging is Debugger.

In code, inside methods, it usually looks like this:

if s.Debugger.IsOn() {
	command, _ := http2curl.GetCurlCommand(req)
	s.Debugger.Print(command.String())
}

Whenever you write your own custom methods, add similar code to provide additional info while working with turned on debugging mode.

If you want to debug scenario, first thing you want to do is to selectively run feature. See CLI: godog. :

godog run features/path/to/your/feature.feature

If you have to run only one scenario, the best way is to add tag over it:

@wip
Scenario: Successfully send avatar

and then run it with following command:

godog run --tags=wip

or

go test -v --godog.tags=wip

Debugging mode may be turned on in two ways:

  1. globally, by setting environment variable: GODOG_DEBUG=true in .env file,
  2. in scenario, using I start debug mode and I stop debug mode steps.

First option turns on debugger for every scenario. It is not good idea to run whole regression (all tests) when debug mode is on, because output will be large and hard to read. Run test by OS path or tag as described above.

Second option allows to focus selectively on steps. For example

Given I start debug mode
When I send request "CREATE_USER"
Given I stop debug mode

Will only turn on debugger for I send request "CREATE_USER" step. In this case, output will be similar to:

Given I start debug mode                                                                # scenario.go:295 -> *Scenario
debug: curl -X 'POST' -d '    {
        "firstName": "CźĄda",
        "lastName": "doe-፫ﲀᆫ𝑙₰",
        "age": 35,
        "description": "hTIDcADY HWOiH olnXJiZT hFfusyFx",
        "friendSince": "2022-03-02T08:54:43Z"
    }' -H 'Content-Type: application/json' -H 'Cookie: csrf_token=this_cookie_is_unnecessary_just_added_for_demonstration' 'http://localhost:1234/users'
debug: last response body:

{"id":2,"firstName":"CźĄda","lastName":"doe-፫ﲀᆫ𝑙₰","age":35,"description":"hTIDcADY HWOiH olnXJiZT hFfusyFx","friendSince":"2022-03-02T08:54:43Z"}


When I send request "CREATE_USER"                                                  # scenario.go:146 -> /defs.Scenario.ISendRequest-fm
Given I stop debug mode

As you see, debugging mode, for sending HTTP(s) request step shows CURL that is sent to server and response body from this request. You can use this CURL to examine, whether your request was composed properly or play on-site with it. Additionally, you see server response immediately for this request.

It’s worth to mention, that you may run whole test regression (all tests) and output will be normal, but with additional lines from debugger just for that step.

Another thing, you may want to use is step:

Given I print last response body

It simply prints last response body to console.

Or you may want to see what’s in scenario cache. Do it with following:

Given I print cache data

Lastly, if your scenario is too long, you may want to stop it half way. To do this, use step:

Given I stop scenario execution
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