ExUnit

v1.8.1

ExUnit.CaptureIO View Source

Functionality to capture IO for testing.

Examples 

defmodule AssertionTest do
  use ExUnit.Case

  import ExUnit.CaptureIO

  test "example" do
    assert capture_io(fn ->
      IO.puts "a"
    end) == "a\n"
  end

  test "checking the return value and the IO output" do
    fun = fn ->
      assert Enum.each(["some", "example"], &(IO.puts &1)) == :ok
    end
    assert capture_io(fun) == "some\nexample\n"
    # tip: or use only: "capture_io(fun)" to silence the IO output (so only assert the return value)
  end
end

Link to this section Summary

Functions

capture_io(fun)

Captures IO generated when evaluating fun

capture_io(device, fun)
capture_io(device, input, fun)

Link to this section Functions

Captures IO generated when evaluating fun.

Returns the binary which is the captured output.

By default, capture_io replaces the group_leader (:stdio) for the current process. However, the capturing of any other named device, such as :stderr, is also possible globally by giving the registered device name explicitly as an argument.

Note that when capturing something other than :stdio, the test should run with async: false.

When capturing :stdio, if the :capture_prompt option is false, prompts (specified as arguments to IO.get* functions) are not captured.

A developer can set a string as an input. The default input is :eof.

Examples 

iex> capture_io(fn -> IO.write("john") end) == "john"
true

iex> capture_io(:stderr, fn -> IO.write(:stderr, "john") end) == "john"
true

iex> capture_io("this is input", fn ->
...>   input = IO.gets ">"
...>   IO.write input
...> end) == ">this is input"
true

iex> capture_io([input: "this is input", capture_prompt: false], fn ->
...>   input = IO.gets ">"
...>   IO.write input
...> end) == "this is input"
true

Returning values

As seen in the examples above, capture_io returns the captured output. If you want to also capture the result of the function executed inside the capture_io, you can use Kernel.send/2 to send yourself a message and use ExUnit.Assertions.assert_received/2 to match on the results:

capture_io([input: "this is input", capture_prompt: false], fn ->
  send self(), {:block_result, 42}
  # ...
end)

assert_received {:block_result, 42}
Link to this function

capture_io(device, input, fun) View Source