mix test.watch

Automatically run your Elixir project's tests each time you save a file. Because TDD is awesome.

Usage

Add it to your dependencies:

# mix.exs (Elixir 1.4)
def deps do
  [{:mix_test_watch, "~> 0.3", only: :dev, runtime: false}]  
end

# mix.exs (Elixir 1.3 and earlier)
def deps do
  [{:mix_test_watch, "~> 0.3", only: :dev}]
end

Run the mix task

mix test.watch

Start hacking :)

Running Additional Mix Tasks

Through the mix config it is possible to run other mix tasks as well as the test task. For example, if I wished to run the Dogma code style linter after my tests I would do so like this.

# config/config.exs
use Mix.Config

if Mix.env == :dev do
  config :mix_test_watch,
    tasks: [
      "test",
      "dogma",
    ]
end

Tasks are run in the order they appear in the list, and the progression will stop if any command returns a non-zero exit code.

All tasks are run with MIX_ENV set to test.

Passing Arguments To Tasks

Any command line arguments passed to the test.watch task will be passed through to the tasks being run. If I only want to run the tests from one file every time I save a file I could do so with this command:

mix test.watch test/file/to_test.exs

Note that if you have configured more than one task to be run these arguments will be passed to all the tasks run, not just the test command.

Running tests of modules that changed

Elixir 1.3 introduced --stale option that will run only those test files which reference modules that have changed since the last run. You can pass it to test.watch:

mix test.watch --stale

Clearing The Console Before Each Run

If you want mix test.watch to clear the console before each run, you can enable this option in your config/dev.exs as follows:

# config/config.exs
use Mix.Config

if Mix.env == :dev do
  config :mix_test_watch,
    clear: true
end

Excluding files or directories

To ignore changes from specific files or directories just add exclude: regexp patterns to your config in mix.exs:

# config/config.exs
use Mix.Config

if Mix.env == :dev do
  config :mix_test_watch,
    exclude: [~r/db_migration\/.*/,
              ~r/useless_.*\.exs/]
end

Compatibility Notes

On Linux you may need to install inotify-tools.

Desktop Notifications

You can enable desktop notifications with ex_unit_notifier.

Licence

mix test.watch
Copyright © 2015-present Louis Pilfold

Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining
a copy of this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"),
to deal in the Software without restriction, including without limitation
the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense,
and/or sell copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the
Software is furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions:

The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included
in all copies or substantial portions of the Software.

THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND,
EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES
OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT.
IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM,
DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT,
TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE
OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.