Using the ScalaTest shell

The main command of the ScalaTest shell is run, which you can use to run a suite of tests. The shell also provides several commands for configuring a call to run:

• color (the default) - display results in color (green for success; red for failure; yellow for warning; blue for statistics)
• nocolor - display results without color
• durations - display durations of (i.e., how long it took to run) tests and suites
• nodurations (the default) - do not display durations of tests and suites
• shortstacks - display short (i.e., truncated to show just the most useful portion) stack traces for all exceptions
• fullstacks - display full stack trackes for all exceptions
• nostacks (the default) - display no stack trace for StackDepth exceptions and a short stack trace for non-StackDepth exceptions
• stats - display statistics before and after the run, such as expected test count before the run and tests succeeded, failed, pending, etc., counts after the run
• nostats (the default) not display statistics before or after the run

The default configuration is color, nodurations, nostacks, and nostats.

All of these commands are fields of trait org.scalatest.Shell. Each configuration command is a field that refers to another Shell instance with every configuration parameter the same except for the one you've asked to change. For example, durations provides a Shell instance that has every parameter configured the same way, except with durations enabled. When you invoke run on that, you will get a run with durations enabled and every other configuration parameter at its default value.

Two other useful "commands" to know about, though not technically part of the shell, are the apply factory methods in the Suites and Specs singleton objects. These allow you to easily create composite suites out of nested suites, which you can then pass to run. This will be demonstrated later on this page.

Using the ScalaTest shell

The package object of the org.scalatest package, although it does not extend Shell, declares all the same members as Shell. Its run method runs with all the Shell configuration parameters set to their default values. A good way to use the ScalaTest shell, therefore, is to import the members of package org.scalatest:

scala> import org.scalatest._
import org.scalatest._

One thing importing org.scalatest._ allows you to do is access any of ScalaTest's classes and traits by shorter names, for example:

scala> class ArithmeticSuite extends AnyFunSuite with matchers.should.Matchers {
     |   test("addition works") { 
     |     1 + 1 should equal (2)
     |   } 
     |   ignore("subtraction works") {
     |     1 - 1 should equal (0)
     |   }
     |   test("multiplication works") {
     |     1 * 1 should equal (2) 
     |   }
     |   test("division works") (pending)
     | } 
defined class ArithmeticSuite

But importing org.scalatest._ also brings into scope the commands of the Shell, so you can, for example, invoke run without qualification:

scala> run(new ArithmeticSuite)
ArithmeticSuite:
- addition works
- subtraction works !!! IGNORED !!!
- multiplication works *** FAILED ***
  1 did not equal 2 (:16)
- division works (pending)

Configuring a single run

To configure a single run, you can prefix run by one or more configuration commands, separated by dots. For example, to enable durations during a single run, you would write:

scala> durations.run(new ArithmeticSuite)
ArithmeticSuite:
- addition works (102 milliseconds)
- subtraction works !!! IGNORED !!!
- multiplication works *** FAILED *** (36 milliseconds)
  1 did not equal 2 (:16)
- division works (pending)

To enable statistics during a single run, you would write:

scala> stats.run(new ArithmeticSuite)
Run starting. Expected test count is: 3
ArithmeticSuite:
- addition works
- subtraction works !!! IGNORED !!!
- multiplication works *** FAILED ***
  1 did not equal 2 (:16)
- division works (pending)
Run completed in 386 milliseconds.
Total number of tests run: 2
Suites: completed 1, aborted 0
Tests: succeeded 1, failed 1, ignored 1, pending 1
*** 1 TEST FAILED ***

And to enable both durations and statistics during a single run, you could write:

scala> durations.stats.run(new ArithmeticSuite)
Run starting. Expected test count is: 3
ArithmeticSuite:
- addition works (102 milliseconds)
- subtraction works !!! IGNORED !!!
- multiplication works *** FAILED (36 milliseconds)***
  1 did not equal 2 (:16)
- division works (pending)
Run completed in 386 milliseconds.
Total number of tests run: 2
Suites: completed 1, aborted 0
Tests: succeeded 1, failed 1, ignored 1, pending 1
*** 1 TEST FAILED ***

The order doesn't matter when you are chaining multiple configuration commands. You'll get the same result whether you write durations.stats.run or stats.durations.run.

To disable color, use nocolor:

scala> nocolor.run(new ArithmeticSuite)
ArithmeticSuite:
- addition works
- subtraction works !!! IGNORED !!!
- multiplication works *** FAILED ***
  1 did not equal 2 (:16)
- division works (pending)

To enable short stack traces during a single run, use shortstacks:

scala> shortstacks.run(new ArithmeticSuite)
ArithmeticSuite:
- addition works (101 milliseconds)
- subtraction works !!! IGNORED !!!
- multiplication works *** FAILED *** (33 milliseconds)
  1 did not equal 2 (:16)
  org.scalatest.TestFailedException:
  ...
  at line2$object$$iw$$iw$$iw$$iw$ArithmeticSuite$$anonfun$3.apply$mcV$sp(:16)
  at line2$object$$iw$$iw$$iw$$iw$ArithmeticSuite$$anonfun$3.apply(:16)
  at line2$object$$iw$$iw$$iw$$iw$ArithmeticSuite$$anonfun$3.apply(:16)
  at org.scalatest.funsuite.AnyFunSuite$$anon$1.apply(AnyFunSuite.scala:992)
  at org.scalatest.Suite$class.withFixture(Suite.scala:1661)
  at line2$object$$iw$$iw$$iw$$iw$ArithmeticSuite.withFixture(:8)
  at org.scalatest.funsuite.AnyFunSuite$class.invokeWithFixture$1(AnyFunSuite.scala:989)
  ...
- division works (pending)

Changing the default configuration

If you want to change the default for multiple runs, you can import the members of your favorite Shell configuration. For example, if you always like to run with durations and statistics enabled, you could write:

scala> import stats.durations._
import stats.durations._

Now anytime you run statistics and durations will, by default, be enabled:

scala> run(new ArithmeticSuite)
Run starting. Expected test count is: 3
ArithmeticSuite:
- addition works (9 milliseconds)
- subtraction works !!! IGNORED !!!
- multiplication works *** FAILED *** (10 milliseconds)
  1 did not equal 2 (:18)
- division works (pending)
Run completed in 56 milliseconds.
Total number of tests run: 2
Suites: completed 1, aborted 0
Tests: succeeded 1, failed 1, ignored 1, pending 1
*** 1 TEST FAILED ***

Running multiple suites

If you want to run multiple suites, you can use the factory methods in either the Suites or Specs singleton objects. If you wrap a comma-separated list of suite instances inside Suites(...), for example, you'll get a suite instance that contains no tests, but whose nested suites includes the suite instances you placed between the parentheses. You can place Suites inside Suites to any level of depth, creating a tree of suites to pass to run. Here's a (contrived) example in which ArithmeticSuite is executed four times:

scala> run(Suites(new ArithmeticSuite, new ArithmeticSuite, Suites(new ArithmeticSuite, new ArithmeticSuite)))
Run starting. Expected test count is: 12
Suites:
ArithmeticSuite:
- addition works (0 milliseconds)
- subtraction works !!! IGNORED !!!
- multiplication works *** FAILED *** (1 millisecond)
  1 did not equal 2 (:16)
- division works (pending)
ArithmeticSuite:
- addition works (1 millisecond)
- subtraction works !!! IGNORED !!!
- multiplication works *** FAILED *** (0 milliseconds)
  1 did not equal 2 (:16)
- division works (pending)
Suites:
ArithmeticSuite:
- addition works (0 milliseconds)
- subtraction works !!! IGNORED !!!
- multiplication works *** FAILED *** (0 milliseconds)
  1 did not equal 2 (:16)
- division works (pending)
ArithmeticSuite:
- addition works (0 milliseconds)
- subtraction works !!! IGNORED !!!
- multiplication works *** FAILED *** (0 milliseconds)
  1 did not equal 2 (:16)
- division works (pending)
Run completed in 144 milliseconds.
Total number of tests run: 8
Suites: completed 6, aborted 0
Tests: succeeded 4, failed 4, ignored 4, pending 4
*** 4 TESTS FAILED ***

Running a single test

The run command also allows you to specify the name of a test to run and/or a config map. You can run a particular test in a suite, for example, by specifying the test name after the suite instance in your call to run, like this:

scala> run(new ArithmeticSuite, "addition works")
ArithmeticSuite:
- addition works