How could I do not repeat the selection process in Cypress?

E.g. if I have:

cy
   .get("...").find("...")...eq(0)...should("...")
   .get("...").find("...")...eq(1)...should("...");

How could I avoid duplicating the .get("...").find("...")... part if at some point I need to pick either the eq(0) or the eq(1)?

Solution

You can use .as() to alias an element.

// Just aliasing the base
cy.get('foo').find('bar').as('something');
cy.get('@something').eq(0).should('exist');
cy.get('@something').eq(1).should('exist');

// aliasing the specific elements
cy.get('foo').find('bar').eq(0).as('firstEl');
cy.get('@firstEl').should('exist');
cy.get('foo').find('bar').eq(1).as('secondEl');
cy.get('@secondEl').should('exist');

You could also use a custom command.

// If the selectors in `get` and `find` are constant, you could do a custom command
Cypress.Commands.add('myGet', (index) => {
  return cy.get('foo').find('bar').eq(index);
})
cy.myGet(0).should('exist');

// Or if you wanted to be able to customize the get and find
Cypress.Commands.add('myGet', (get, find, index) => {
  return cy.get(get).find(find).eq(index);
})

cy.myGet('foo', 'bar', 0).should('exist');