Ordering tests

[pvandervelde]

Is it currently possible to order tests in Pester? I'm using Pester for my integration / regression tests and would like to write tests like this

Describe 'My process' {
    Context 'executes without errors' {

        $processExitCode = -1
        It 'without throwing exceptions' {
            try
            {
                & myprocess.exe
                $processExitCode = $LASTEXITCODE
            }
            catch
            {
                # Process has failed :(
                $true | Should Be $false
            }
        }

        It 'with a zero exit code' {
            $processExitCode | Should be 0
        }
    }

    Context 'produces output' {
        It 'that is correct' {
            'c:\my\file.txt' | Should Exist
        }
    }
}

That does require that the first context block always gets executed first.

Is there a way to tell Pester to order my tests?

[dlwyatt]

They're always executed in the order they're defined, top to bottom. However, it's generally considered bad practice to write tests that depend on another test to work. In this case, I would just make a single It block with three assertions:

Describe 'My process' {
    It 'Executes properly' {
        & myprocess.exe
        $LASTEXITCODE | Should Be 0
        'c:\my\file.txt' | Should Exist
    }
}

There's no need for a try/catch, since any terminating error will fail the test anyway.

[pvandervelde]

I know it's not good practise but these are integration tests which may take a while so I don't really feel like using a test setup/teardown for each test because then it would really take ages. I can work with the fact that Pester executes from top to bottom :)