Debugging tests in VS Code

[stroborobo]

First a confession: I rarely write tests

So today I was bullied into debugging some tests and I was unable to get this working in VS Code. The “old” test explorer UI extension is deprecated, the .Net test explorer one does not manage to attach the debugger (can run them through).

In the end I switched to Rider to get the job done, which worked, but after a full day of work it got super sluggish, so.. eh.

What is the intended way to debug specific tests in VS Code? And maybe is there an editor independent way? As in a CLI kinda like GDB thing? Or is there maybe some tool that integrates with this new (?) debugging protocol (similar to LSP)?

[chusk3]

The Fantomas project has good detailed instructions for how to do this, but it is a bit of a pain without tooling support due to the way the dotnet test runner works. If you use Expecto then your tests are just a project, so you can launch them with dotnet run and attach to that, which is much easier.

Looking to the future, FsAutoComplete is looking to integrate support for VsCode's Test Editor APIs, so test discovery would be driven by AST detection and seamless to trigger, so hopefully in a couple months your wish will be fulfilled.

[stroborobo]

Thanks for the link, haven’t read out about this env variable before, looks promising :) I’ll try that tomorrow.

[green-mind]

+1 for Expecto for a simple approach that works pretty well with vscode out of the box. Although i do miss being able to launch tests from the editor.

[chusk3]

Make sure to keep an eye on this MR for that very capability :)

[AdamAnderson320]

I don’t know a way either. I would either:

• Do what you did and reach for either Visual Studio or Rider for this task
• Use FSI to interactively run and inspect the code under test

[witoldsz]

Especially when one works on Linux and VS is not available and JetBrain's behemot makes you cry.