Parallel test execution

[michaelw]

Hi Mehdi

I am wanting to use bddify to run Selenium tests. I have been looking
into ways to execute multiple tests in parallel. I am using nunit, but
it seems that is not going to support parallel test execution until
v3. mbUnit is offering it already, but I'm not particularly wanting to
go back to it. I seem to remember reading in one of your articles that
bddify has some control over how tests are executed, and I wonder if
parallel test execution was something that bddify supports now, or
that you might plan to support in the future?

Thanks
Michael

[Mehdi Khalili]

Hi Michael,

With regards to what you remember from reading my blog, when I first
wrote bddify the API looked like: 'typeof(ScenarioClass).Bddify();'
So you would not actually bddify an instance of a class but its type
instead. That meant that bddify had to take over object instatiation
and disposal plus a whole lot more. It worked really well; but passing
an instance in enabled quite a few scenaiors that would not be
possible; so I changed the framework to bddify an instance instead. As
such bddify no longer has complete control over the test execution
process. Your test runner of choice runs the test and from that point
forward bddify takes over and controls how each test is executed.

Back to your question, bddify has no built-in support for parallel
execution of tests because it is invoked only to bddify each test (by
your test runner). I am thinking about creating an extension for
bddify called Bddify.Selenium that simplifies writing automated
functional test over Selenium the same way bddify simplifies writing
BDD. That extension could run your tests over multiple browsers in
parallel. Please note that the extension does not exist yet and I am
only thinking about it.

Unfortunately in the absense of the extension and support from nunit
you are left to do it yourself.

Cheers,
Mehdi

[michaelw]

Thanks for clearing that up Mehdi. The Bddify.Selenium extension
sounds very useful and I will be interested to learn more about it if
you decide to implement it.

Thanks for your swift response, as usual.
Michael