How to programmatically ignore/skip tests with ScalaTest?

Question

I am running some tests with ScalaTest which rely on connections to test servers to be present. I currently created my own Spec similar to this:

abstract class ServerDependingSpec extends FlatSpec with Matchers {

  def serverIsAvailable: Boolean = {
    // Check if the server is available
  }
}

Is it possible to ignore (but not fail) tests when this method returns false?

Currently I do it in a "hackish" way:

"Something" should "do something" in {
  if(serverIsAvailable) {
    // my test code
  }
}

but I want something like

whenServerAvailable "Something" should "do something" in { 
  // test code
}

or

"Something" should "do something" whenServerAvailable { 
  // test code
}

I think I should define my custom tag, but I can only refer to the source code of in or ignore and I do not understand how I should plug in my custom implementations.

How should I accomplish this?

Answer 1

You can use Tags to achieve this:

Documentation on how to use Tags : http://www.scalatest.org/user_guide/tagging_your_tests

Adding and removing tagged test with command line parameters: http://www.scalatest.org/user_guide/using_the_runner#specifyingTagsToIncludeAndExclude

Example Code:

import org.scalatest.Tag

object ServerIsAvailable extends Tag("biz.neumann.ServerIsAvailable")

"Something" should "do something" taggedAs(ServerIsAvailable) in { 
  // your test here
}

Running the tests

Running the tests is a bitt tricky. It only works for testOnly and testQuick not test. In the example testOnly is short for testOnly *

 sbt "testOnly -- -l biz.neumann.ServerAvailable"