Specflow - Create Pre-defined data to be shared between all scenarios in test execution with parallel execution

Question

I am trying to Re-create my BeforeTestRun step to run my setup only once per whole execution not per thread.

I had a look a Custom Deployment steps I have implemented some already but For my setup i need to bring in some values from the app.config file I am trying something like this

my Default.srprofile file contains:

 <DeploymentTransformation>
    <GlobalSteps>
      <Custom type="Test.CustomDeploymentStep, Test"></Custom>
    </GlobalSteps>
  </DeploymentTransformation>

and my CustomDeploymentStep.cs:

public class CustomDeploymentStep : IDeploymentTransformationStep
{
    public static string baseUrl;

    public void Apply(IDeploymentContext deploymentContext)
    {
       
        baseUrl = ConfigurationManager.AppSettings["URL"];
    }
    public void Restore(IDeploymentContext deploymentContext)
    {
        
        DoSomething();
    }

}

My app config contains the following:

<add key="URL" value="http://google.com" />

But That does not work, The ConfigurationManager.AppSettings only returns one key and one value

"key" : "TestProjectRetargetTo35Allowed" "value":"true"

How can I load my configuration from app.config into the Apply() method in CustomDeploymentStep?

Also If there is a better/more efficient way of generating pre-defined data in specflow with thread safe execution, please do let me know

Answer 1

I ran into the same problem once I needed to use custom deployment steps in more than one project in a large solution. This appears to be a bug within the TechTalk.SpecRun.Framework. The error is likely "Error applying global deployment step. Global steps cannot contain test assembly specific settings." and if you look inside the TestAssembly while debugging you will see the TestAssemblyConfigFilePath is null and/or swallowing another exception.

It doesn't register a project specific configuration file. My workaround was to save the config file into debug and access what I need like so:

      string appConfigFilePath = Path.GetDirectoryName(Assembly.GetExecutingAssembly().Location) + "\\App.config";

      ExeConfigurationFileMap configMap = new ExeConfigurationFileMap();
      configMap.ExeConfigFilename = appConfigFilePath;
      var config = ConfigurationManager.OpenMappedExeConfiguration(configMap, ConfigurationUserLevel.None);
      var baseUrl = config.AppSettings.Settings["URL"].Value;