Access Intern Command Line Arguments

By  on  

SitePen's excellent client side testing tool, Intern, comes with an excellent command line utility to run tests and customize how those tests are run.  The options provided are great but what if I want to make the command line more dynamic?  What if I want to add custom command line arguments, available to tests, to pass along important information like sensitive credentials (which you don't want hard-coded in config files) or you simply want to allow overwriting of values within the static config file?  It's actually quite easy:

define(['intern'], function(intern) {
	
	if(intern.args.someCustomArg != undefined) {

		/* use the custom command line arg */

	}
});

The intern module provides you the provided arguments via the args property.  From there you can pick off the argument values as you wish.  So what do I pass in via the command line?

  • Login credentials for the test to use
  • The domain I want to test (local dev, staging, production)
  • Select browsers I want to test (i.e. I don't want to run all of them cited in the config)

What you could add is specific to your app, but be glad it's so easy to do!

Recent Features

  • By
    Responsive and Infinitely Scalable JS Animations

    Back in late 2012 it was not easy to find open source projects using requestAnimationFrame() - this is the hook that allows Javascript code to synchronize with a web browser's native paint loop. Animations using this method can run at 60 fps and deliver fantastic...

  • By
    LightFace:  Facebook Lightbox for MooTools

    One of the web components I've always loved has been Facebook's modal dialog.  This "lightbox" isn't like others:  no dark overlay, no obnoxious animating to size, and it doesn't try to do "too much."  With Facebook's dialog in mind, I've created LightFace:  a Facebook lightbox...

Incredible Demos

  • By
    The Simple Intro to SVG Animation

    This article serves as a first step toward mastering SVG element animation. Included within are links to key resources for diving deeper, so bookmark this page and refer back to it throughout your journey toward SVG mastery. An SVG element is a special type of DOM element...

  • By
    Create a NoScript Compatible Select Form Element with an onChange Event

    I wouldn't say that I'm addicted to checking Google Analytics but I do check my statistics often. I guess hoping for a huge burst of traffic from some unknown source. Anyway, I have multiple sites set up within my account. The way to...

Discussion

    Wrap your code in <pre class="{language}"></pre> tags, link to a GitHub gist, JSFiddle fiddle, or CodePen pen to embed!