Test and document the possibility to modify the transactions list

[honzajavorek]

Disclaimer

Dredd is primarily a tool designed to perform isolated tests and hooks are here to help you to isolate each test. If you need to modify the transactions array, it's a sign you're not creating isolated tests. YMMV if that's good or bad.

Workaround using Dredd hooks

There is a way how to modify the array of transactions in a beforeAll hook. An example how to duplicate the first transaction and how to add it at the end of the transactions array:

const hooks = require('hooks');
const clone = require('clone');

beforeAll((transactions, done) => {
  transactions.push(clone(transactions[0]));
  done();
});

Flaws

Will this work in other languages than JS?

Use cases

The workaround allows you to solve following problems:

• Add extra transactions Is it possible to add extra transactions? #976
• Modify transactions get another transition in a hook #411
• Duplicate/retry transactions Is it possible to add extra transactions? #976 Add way to retry transaction if it fails #621
• Sort transactions Ability to specify order of the transactions #456 Custom transaction ordering for workflow/scenario testing #358 - nice example in Ability to specify order of the transactions #456 (comment)
• Re-run transactions 'rerun' flag for transaction in hooks #277

Why this is a workaround

Again, Dredd is primarily a tool designed to perform isolated tests. We may support integration scenarios or workflows in the future and we would love to hear about what approach you think would be the most useful to you (tracking issue: #358), but as of now, Dredd isn't ready to help you with more complicated flows.

[MCMic]

It does not seem to work in PHP

I tried:

Hooks::beforeAll(function(&$transactions) {
  array_splice($transactions, 2);
});

But all transactions still got tested.