Getting QUnit to run tests in order

Question

I've used qunit to write a series of tests for javascript code I have. Right now for some reason, the first test in my list will run, and then the LAST test in the list runs, followed by the 2nd to last, 3rd to last, 4th to last, etc... It's crucial for my tests that things run in the order that I have them in. I tried turning off that option where qunit runs tests that failed last time first, but it's still doing this. Is there any way to fix this?

Answer 1

First, figure out why your tests MUST run in a specific order. The whole point of unit testing is that the tests are atomic and it should be possible to run them in any order - if your test suite isn't capable of this, you need to figure out why as it may represent a larger problem.

If you can't figure it out, then you may need to break your test suite up into smaller groups of tests until you find the one(s) causing the issue.

edit : Found this reference at http://www.educatedguesswork.org/2011/06/curse_you_qunit_1.html . Apparently, adding this to your test suite will help QUnit.config.reorder = false;

Answer 2

Maybe you could consider placing the code that does each major computation in a function that has a test at the beginning that checks if the computation was already done. If the computation is not done, do the computation and save the result somewhere. If the computation has already been done then just return the results. In this way you can have a single computation for all the tests but still be autonomous to the order the tests are done.

I can relate to the problems of time consuming computations in unit testing, but it is imperative to the test group to be able to take any unit test and execute as an independent autonomous test. This is especially true when a critical problem comes up and has to be addressed specifically.