How can I let CruiseControl.NET/nant run all Unittest projects postfixed with .Test?

Question

In our continuous integration setup, I would like to set up CruisControl.NET to automatically run all our unittests. However, I don't want to have to specify every unittest dll seperately in the configuration.

All the unittest projects are all postfixed with .Test (and all non-unittest projects are not). How can I configure CruiseControl.NET to run all the unittests from these projects (I am using v1.5.7256.1 of CruiseControl.NET)?

My current config attempt:

<nunit>
    <path>$(nunit.path)</path>
    <assemblies>
        <assembly>$(working.dir)\**\*.Test.dll</assembly>
    </assemblies>
</nunit>

I'm finding it very difficult to find documentation on this specific nunit element. Most pages I can find talk about using exec, nunit2 or another nunit element or the nunit-console commandline options.

I don't have much experience with managing the build environment and am working on an existing configuration where every assembly was specified separately in the following manner.

<nunit>
    <path>$(nunit.path)</path>
    <assemblies>
        <assembly>$(artifact.dir)\test1.dll</assembly>
        <assembly>$(artifact.dir)\test2.dll</assembly>
    </assemblies>
</nunit>

Hence my failed attempt using wild cards.

EDIT:

Here is some extra xml of my configuration file to show the context a little bit:

<cruisecontrol xmlns:cb="urn:ccnet.config.builder">
    <project name="MyProject">
        <!-- whole bunch of other elements -->
        <tasks>
            <nunit>
                <!-- see above -->
            </nunit>
        </tasks>
    </project>
</cruiscontrol>

After Mightmuke's suggestion, I tried replacing the <nunit> element with his suggestion, but got the following exception: Unable to instantiate CruiseControl projects from configuration document. Configuration document is likely missing Xml nodes required for properly populating CruiseControl configuration. Unable to load array item 'property' - Cannot convert from type System.String to ThoughtWorks.CruiseControl.Core.ITask for object with value: ""

Then I tried to move the <property> and <foreach> element outside the element. Then I get the exception: Unused node detected: <property name="nunit.filelist" value="" />

I'm now trying to find out more about the <foreach> element and where I can put that, but somehow I find it hard to find any documentation about it.

EDIT2:

I found the documentation of the nunit task I'm using: http://ccnet.sourceforge.net/CCNET/NUnit%20Task.html

I specifies the element to be of type String[]. I'm not sure what that means... but it seems from the example that it just means that it must contain a list of child elements of the same name in Singular form.

PS: I realize this question is getting a bit out of hand... When the whole thing is solved, I'll try to edit it in such a format so that it might be useful to someone else later.

Probably not what you ant to hear, but the nunit task is deprecated in favour of the nunit2 task. However I would recommend that you use the nunit console command line options with the latest version of nunit, and pass in a filtered filelist as an argument. If this is an option for you, I could provide an example. — Mightymuke
@Mightymuke This is an option for me. I would really appreciate the example. I was wondering though, the deprecated nunit task seems to have a different api than the one I'm using. I don't see the <path> and <assemblies> element explained there. Am I looking at the wrong documentation? — Matthijs Wessels
Are you using the nauckit nant task? If so, you could potentially use the AssemblyFileSet, but my preference would still be the nunit console option. — Mightymuke

Mightymuke Mightymuke · Accepted Answer · 2013-01-23T21:49:34

This is an example configuration if you were to use the nunit console.

<property name="nunit.filelist" value="" />
<foreach item="File" property="testfile" verbose="true">
  <in>
    <items basedir=".">
      <include name="${working.dir}\**\*.Test.dll" />
    </items>
  </in>
  <do>
    <property name="nunit.filelist" value="${nunitfile.list + ' ' + testfile}" />
  </do>
</foreach>

<exec program="nunit-console-x86.exe" failonerror="true" verbose="true">
  <arg value="${nunit.filelist}" />
  <arg value="/xml=nunit-results.xml" />
  <arg value="/nologo" />
  <arg value="/nodots" />
</exec>

This hasn't been tested, and there are likely better ways to skin it, but it will hopefully provide a starting point for you.

How can I let CruiseControl.NET/nant run all Unittest projects postfixed with .Test?

1 Answers