Console output not showing from ITestEventListener

[m-kl]

Hello everyone,

I am trying to develop a simple nunit extension that writes the currently executed test fixture to the console.

private TextReader _out = Console.Out;

public void OnTestEvent(string report) {
    var document = XDocument.Parse(report);

    var rootElement = document.Root;
    if (rootElement == null || rootElement.Name != "start-suite") {
        return;
    }

    var typeAttribute = rootElement.Attribute("type");
    if (typeAttribute is not { Value: "TestFixture" }) {
        return;
    }

    var fullnameAttribute = rootElement.Attribute("fullname");
    if (fullnameAttribute == null) {
        return;
    }

    var fullname = fullnameAttribute.Value;
    _out.WriteLine($"1 Running TestFixture: {fullname}");
    _out.Flush();

    Console.WriteLine($"2 Running TestFixture: {fullname}");

    TestContext.Progress.WriteLine($"3 Running TestFixture: {fullname}");
    TestContext.Progress.Flush();

    TestContext.Out.WriteLine($"4 Running TestFixture: {fullname}");
    TestContext.Out.Flush();
}

Running a test using "dotnet test" in a hello world like environment results in one of those four output lines being printed to the console:
"1 Running TestFixture: TestService.Test.Tests"

I am wondering why only the output from the manually captures Console.Out shows up and where I might find the other outputs and whether this is an error. In our real test environment, not even the output from _out shows up, but in my opinion this doesn't look like the output channel that should be used anyway and rather like a hack.
Is there a known issue regarding the output to the TextWriters above or is there anything I need to configure additionally to find those outputs?

My NUnit Version is 4.2.2

Thanks for your help!

[CharliePoole]

Are you actually creating an extension implementing ITestEventListener and installing it? Or is this code simply included in your tests somewhere?

[m-kl]

It's an actual extension in a different assembly referenced by an *.addins file

[CharliePoole]

OK. I asked because of your use of TestContext, which is something that only exists inside the framework, whereas an engine extension runs after the event has been passed outside the framework, to the engine. Since our code is compiling successfully, your extenson is apparently referencing the framework, which is not normal. Writes 3 and 4 won't do anything because you are using a TestContext, which isn't actually hooked up to anything.

Since you initialiize _out to Console.Out, _out.WriteLine() and Console.WriteLine() do the same thing. I suspect you are not seeing output number 2 because you aren't flushing after it is written.

A few added notes:

1. The environment that is actually running your test, in this case dotnet test, has control over what happens to any output. Some other environments may not display your output in the same way. For example, my TestCentric GUI doesn't run with an associated console, so nothing will appear.
2. You may wonder why your use of TestContext fails silently. At one time in NUnit's life, your usage may have thrown an exception. Folks argued for the silent failure because it could also fail inside the framework, if you used it "between" tests. We fixed that as a bug, which perhaps we should not have done.

[CharliePoole]

Closing due to inactivity