Running Elixir tests in VSCode

July 30, 2019

In Vim-land, I use the <a href="https://www.github.com/janko-m/vim-test">vim-test plugin</a> for quickly executing tests from a command line shortcut<a href="#fn1">1</a>. I wanted to reproduce this behavior in <a href="https://code.visualstudio.com">Visual Studio Code</a>, but I couldn’t find an extension that worked in multiple languages (namely, Ruby, Elixir, Javascript, and Elm). I’m mostly just using VSCode for Elixir, but I still liked the idea of finding a more general purpose solution. So instead I used VSCode’s support for <a href="https://code.visualstudio.com/docs/editor/tasks">Tasks</a> to build the functionality myself. So in my project’s <code>tasks.json</code> file, I have the following 3 tasks for running all tests, a single test (whatever is under the cursor), and the current file’s tests. <div class="highlight"><pre class="highlight json"><code>{ "version": "2.0.0", "tasks": [ { "label": "mix test", "type": "shell", "group": "test", "command": "mix test", "presentation": { "echo": true, "reveal": "always", "focus": false, "panel": "shared", "clear": true } }, { "label": "single test", "type": "shell", "group": "test", "command": "mix test ${relativeFile}:${lineNumber}", "presentation": { "echo": true, "reveal": "always", "focus": false, "panel": "shared", "clear": true }, "runOptions": { "reevaluateOnRerun": false } }, { "label": "test current file", "type": "shell", "group": "test", "command": "mix test ${relativeFile}", "presentation": { "echo": true, "reveal": "always", "focus": false, "panel": "shared", "clear": true }, "runOptions": { "reevaluateOnRerun": false } } ] } </code></pre></div> Next, I setup keyboard shortcuts to run these. You can access this json file by going to Preferences –> Keyboard Shortcuts, and then clicking the <code>{}</code> icon. I used <code>alt-t</code> and <code>alt-shift-t</code> for single test and current file, respectively. I didn’t create one for running all of the tests because I don’t do that frequently enough to warrant a shortcut. <div class="highlight"><pre class="highlight json"><code> { "key": "alt+t", "command": "workbench.action.tasks.runTask", "args": "single test", "when": "editorLangId == elixir" }, { "key": "alt+shift+t", "command": "workbench.action.tasks.runTask", "args": "test current file", "when": "editorLangId == elixir" }, </code></pre></div> <div class="footnotes"> <hr> <ol> <li id="fn1"> <a href="/articles/2016/02/01/run-your-ruby-tests-using-vim-and-tmux">I have an article about this</a>, but my setup has since changed to use this plugin instead. <a href="#fnref1">↩</a> </li> </ol> </div>

#vscode #elixir #testing