Possible to test long time processing CLI actions?

[koddr]

my question is...

Possible to test long time processing CLI actions?

I develop CLI for aggregation of all create-<NAME>-app and similar frontend things. Very often the execution of such a command (e.g. installation of dependencies by npm install) takes a very long time and exits the tests (e.g. on gocover.io or locally). That is, they're out of 30 or even 180 seconds limit.

This is my project source (without some extra lines of code):

// ./main.go

package main

// ...

func main() {
	// Start new CLI app
	myCmd, err := mycmd.New()
	if err != nil {
		log.Fatal(err)
	}

	// Run new CLI
	if err = myCmd.Run(os.Args); err != nil {
		log.Fatal(err)
	}
}

Next, I separated a new CLI instance to ./pkg/mycmd/new.go file:

// ./pkg/mycmd/new.go

package mycmd

// ...

var (
	appPath             string
	appFrontend         string
)

func New() (*cli.App, error) {
	// Init CLI
	app := &cli.App{}

	// Configure CLI
	app.Name = "mycmd"
	app.Usage = "description"
	app.Version = "0.1.0"

	// Setting CLI commands
	app.Commands = []*cli.Command{
		{
			Name:  "create",
			Usage: "create a new project with the selected configuration",
			Flags: []cli.Flag{
				&cli.StringFlag{
					Name:        "path",
					Aliases:     []string{"p"},
					Value:       "./my-project",
					Usage:       "path to create project, ex. ~/projects/my-app",
					Required:    false,
					Destination: &appPath,
				},
				&cli.StringFlag{
					Name:        "frontend",
					Aliases:     []string{"f"},
					Value:       "none",
					Usage:       "frontend for your project, ex. Preact, React, Vue, Svelte",
					Required:    false,
					Destination: &appFrontend,
				},
			},
			Action: CreateCLIAction, // <-- this is my action func
		},
	}

	return app, nil
}

Action func lives here:

// ./pkg/mycmd/actions.go

package mycmd

// ...

func CreateCLIAction(c *cli.Context) error {
	// ...

	options := []string{}

	// ...

	switch appFrontend {
	case "react":
		options = []string{
			// ...
		}
		break
	// ...
	}

	if appFrontend != "none" {
		// ...
		cmd := exec.Command("npm", options...) 
		// ^ execute options to install each frameworks via npm
		// ...
	}

	// ...

	return nil
}

And my question is... how can I test CreateCLIAction(c *cli.Context) func on right (recommended) way and without waiting so long time to execute npm things? Usage example to explain this moment, would be great! 😉

Thanks!

P.S. I'm newbie to testing and mocking so complex programs in Go.

[stale]

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[stale]

Closing this as it has become stale.

[dearchap]

@koddr Does the CreateCLIAction use any functions from cli.Context ?

[dearchap]

@meatballhat Are we planning to have context as an interface in v3 ?

[meatballhat]

@dearchap I would love to see #1587 for v3, which would remove/combine the cli.Context type

[dearchap]

@koddr There is nothing in the cli library that enforces any time limits or anything. So the command will run till the action function returns. If you are starting your cli app from the shell you can run it in the background and run your next cli app invocation.