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Some FitNesse tricks: Classpath and debugging

Started by jhannes · 3 months ago

On my project, we use Maven to build our software and FitNesse to write functional specifications. However, it was obvious that FitNesse wasn’t designed by Maven-fans. When I use Maven, I already have control over my classpath, and specifying it in every FitNesse test gets to be ... Continue reading »

5 comments

  • Ole Morten Amundsen

    8 months ago

    Finally, I might assist you, Johannes! Nice work, but sadly, I think you're reinventing the weel here. I meant to write a blog post about this, including how to use the pom. No excuses!

    We include the pom in the Fitnesse page by writing "!pom path_to_the_pom_he_fixtures_were_built_from/pom.xml". See http://boss.bekk.no/fitnesse-pom-widget/usage.html

    Now you may set up a debugger in eclipse. Java Application->new->
    Main class: fitnesse.runner.TestRunner
    Arguments: localhost 8091 YourWikiPathToTestOrSuite -v -html fitnesse.html

    Bonus tip to your many readers: add "-e 0" to the startup of your FitNesse server to avoid those dreadful zips. Isn't FitNesse intuitive?
    reply
  • Johannes Brodwall

    8 months ago

    Hi, Ole Morten

    Three reasons why I don't like solutions like the fitnesse-pom-widget:

    1. You have to install fitnesse yourself. PLUS: You have to micky around with the installation. For me, maven is my only installer
    2. You have to start up stuff with special commands and stuff. For me, Eclipse is my only application runner.
    3. You still have to specify a path to the pom that will vary from workstation to workstation in your tests. For me, there is no changes when you relocate the workspace.

    Close, but no cigar.

    The debugger is nice, but the result of running the test won't be displayed in your web browser, right?
    reply
  • Ole Morten Amundsen

    8 months ago

    I share your philosophy. I want to run everything locally, including the fitnesse server. This is my startup script

    java -cp fitnesse.jar;lib\fitnesse-pom-widget-1.0-SNAPSHOT.jar;lib\maven-embedder-2.0.4-dep.jar fitnesse.FitNesse -p 8091 -r FitNesseRoot -l logs -o -e 0

    Guess you'd find a way to execute the fitness server from Eclipse, but I don't see why. It uses near to nothing of resources and don't need to be restarted to notice updates. A simple .bat or .sh is good enough.

    RELOCATION
    I presume you have your fixtures in source control, why not have fitnesse ialongside it? They definetly belong together.

    /trunk/fitnesse
    /trunk/fixtures (or wherever the fixtures are located)

    Then you may use the relative path "!pom ../fixtures/pom.xml"

    DEBUGGER
    The option -html fitnesse.html in the debugger outputs the results in the same manner as pressing Test in the fitnesse page.

    Sadly, there is no cigar with FitNesse. I say, use it to communicate requirements, supplement with a few test tables. It's a wiki, terrible to maintain and opposes refactoring. I've committed my share of sins. Do you have any rules/guidelines for this Johannes?
    reply
  • Nils-Helge Garli Hegvik

    8 months ago

    As the author of the fitnesse plugin that Ole Morten kindly enough has mentioned, I do agree with you that it is pretty obvious that FitNesse was not built with Maven in mind, and worse, it's practically impossible to customize! It's not modular and extensible at all (you wouldn't believe the troubles and hacks I had to go through to get that thing to work...)!

    Anyway, you seem to have found a good solution for running FitNesse for a Maven project. I still think there's cases where the pom widget is useful, especially when having a common FitNesse server installation and multiple projects within it.

    As for me, I've left FitNesse and use plain Fit instead. We use Excel spreadsheets as the source and convert them to HTML tables when the tests are run. Then our build run Fit with these converted HTML tables. It's fast, simple and more importantly, just what we need.
    reply
  • Johannes Brodwall

    7 months ago

    Hei, Nils-Helge

    Using plain old Fit is indeed an option that I considered, too. But now I am actually glad I didn't. I hope you'll like to try out the code from this article.

    FitNesse is definitely not designed with embedding and extending in mind. But when I was willing to dive into it, I found it wasn't that bad. I really wish my "trick" with writing my own main class was closer to the intended use, though.
    reply

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