This article will help you build, test and try out local builds of the VS test platform.
Please ensure you have a .net 4.6.2
or higher installed on the machine.
Clone the repository to a local directory. Rest of this article assumes
/src/vstest
as the location of source enlistment.
> git clone https://github.com/Microsoft/vstest.git
If you're planning to use Visual Studio as development environment, please
install VS 2022
with .NET Desktop development workload, and install individual component .NET Portable Library targeting pack
.
If you're not planning to use Visual Studio and only use CLI. You will need to install .Net 46 targeting pack. The download link has two msis. Both needs to be installed. Otherwise build will fail asking to install net 46.
Install common tools
sudo apt install libcurl4-openssl-dev
Follow the instructions on Mono Installation page to install latest bits.
Rest of the article will provide steps for VS and CLI/Editors development.
Open /src/vstest/TestPlatform.sln
in VS.
Use Build Solution
to build the source code.
Binaries for each assembly are produced in the
artifacts/src/<Assembly>/bin/Debug
directory.
To build the repository, run the following command:
> cd /src/vstest
> build.cmd
This command will fetch the latest dotnet-cli
into /src/vstest/tools/dotnet
directory. It will use the dotnet
executable present there to build the source
code. All the nuget required for build will be downloaded to
/src/vstest/.packages
directory.
Build will produce following assets:
- A portable
vstest.console
for desktop (net46 target) and xplat (netcoreapp) target - A visual studio extension
Microsoft.TestPlatform.vsix
with the test platform components required in VS test explorer - Test platform SDK packages for ObjectModel and TranslationLayer
We will discuss more on each assets are in the Deployment section below.
Binaries for each assembly is produced along side the source. E.g. ObjectModel
assemblies can be found at
/src/vstest/src/Microsoft.TestPlatform.ObjectModel/bin/Debug/net46/*.dll
.
To build a particular configuration, use the -c
option. E.g. to trigger a
release build use
> build.cmd -c Release
For other options, check /src/vstest/scripts/build.ps1
.
There are following sets of tests:
- Unit tests
- Very fast tests primarily validating individual units
- Named as
<UnitUnderTest>.UnitTests
where UnitUnderTest is any product assembly
- Smoke tests
- Slower end to end tests. Typically these cover P0 scenarios (99% of users will use these, if these are broken, PR will not be merged)
- Driven by a real
vstest.console
executable - Named as
Microsoft.TestPlatform.SmokeTests
- End to end tests
- Slower end to end tests for extensive coverage
- Driven by a real
vstest.console
executable - Named as
Microsoft.TestPlatform.AcceptanceTests
As a principle, most of tests are unit tests (~70-80%), few smoke tests (~20-15%), fewer acceptance tests (~10-5%).
Unit tests and smoke/acceptance tests are run with the vstest.console
built by
the build
step above.
Currently tests are run in VS 2017 RC using the test platform bits. You need to install the testplatform.vsix generated by build if you're using an older version of VS (< RC.3). See Deployment for installation steps.
Run the tests in Test Explorer. Use a search filter like project:"Unit"
to
run only unit tests. For running smoke tests, use the project:"Smoke"
filter.
To execute tests, run the following command:
> cd /src/vstest
> test.cmd
By default, only unit tests are run. To run the smoke tests, provide the -p
option to test.cmd
to set test assembly pattern:
> test.cmd -p smoke
The -p
option can be used to run tests for any assembly as well. E.g.
following command will run tests for datacollector:
> test.cmd -p datacollector
Tests for a particular configuration can be run with following command. By
default, Debug
configuration is run.
> test.cmd -c release
If you want to run a particular test. Eg: Test Name that contains Blame in Acceptance test
> test.cmd -p accept -f net451 -filter blame
This section will discuss the steps to use the vstest.console
we've built
using previous instructions.
Visual Studio 2017 RC ships with the test platform vsix
generated by build.cmd. To use the locally
built version, use the following steps in a developer command prompt.
> vsixinstaller /src/vstest/artifacts/Debug/TestPlatform.vsix
# (replace Debug with Release as appropriate)
A netcoreapp
target of vstest.console is dropped at
/src/vstest/artifacts/<Configuration>/netcoreapp1.0/vstest.console.dll
. It can be
executed with any dotnet executable. You may choose to use the dotnet-cli we
have in /src/vstest/tools/dotnet/dotnet
as well :)
> /src/vstest/tools/dotnet/dotnet /src/vstest/artifacts/Debug/netcoreapp1.0/vstest.console.dll /?
A net46
target of vstest.console is dropped at
src/vstest/artifacts/<Configuration>/net46/win7-x64
. It can be run directly as
follows:
> /src/vstest/artifacts/Debug/net46/win7-x64/vstest.console.exe /?
Try to isolate the failure scenario. In the best case it's just a command line that can demonstrate a bug. For example, a bug in discovery of tests can show up in following command line:
> /src/vstest/artifacts/Debug/net46/win7-x64/vstest.console.exe mytest.dll /listTests /tests:*&&*#Ed
Next step is to enable verbose logging to understand details.
Another add a Debugger.Launch
at the process launch points. E.g.
testhost.exe
or vstest.console.exe
. Select the appropriate debugger (choose
CoreCLR for netcoreapp scenario) and step through the code.
Test Platform (TPv2) is packaged as a vsix
with VS 2017 RC releases and lights up the .NET core and Live Unit Testing scenarios. It currently does not support UWP & data collector scenarios (code coverage & fakes). It is placed @ "%programfiles(x86)%\Microsoft Visual Studio\2017\Enterprise\Common7\IDE\Extensions\TestPlatform"
.
Desktop, UWP & Native unit testing continues to use the test platform (TPv1) located @ "%programfiles(x86)%\Microsoft Visual Studio\2017\Enterprise\Common7\IDE\CommonExtensions\Microsoft\TestWindow"
.
To use TPv2 for desktop - place testplatform.config
@ "%programfiles(x86)%\Microsoft Visual Studio\2017\Enterprise\Common7\IDE\Extensions\TestPlatform"
with the contents below.
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<configuration>
<appSettings>
<add key="feature.net35" value="true" />
<add key="feature.net40" value="true" />
<add key="feature.datacollector" value="true"/>
</appSettings>
</configuration>
If feature.net35
and feature.net40
are set to true
, VS Test Explorer will use TPv2 for desktop flow for tests targeting net35 and net40 frameworks respectively. If feature.datacollector
is set to true
, VS Test Explorer will use TPv2 when data collectors are enabled.