beforeEach/afterEach hooks not executing for nested tests

[rochdev]

Version

v20.0.0

Platform

Darwin Rochs-MBP.localdomain 22.3.0 Darwin Kernel Version 22.3.0: Mon Jan 30 20:38:37 PST 2023; root:xnu-8792.81.3~2/RELEASE_ARM64_T6000 arm64

Subsystem

node:test

What steps will reproduce the bug?

const { describe, beforeEach, it } = require('node:test')

describe('Root', () => {
  beforeEach(() => {
    console.log('test') // only prints when the Nested context is entered
  })

  describe('Nested', () => {
    it('should run beforeEach in first test', () => {
      // always pass
    })

    it('should run beforeEach in second test', () => {
      // always pass
    })

    it('should run beforeEach in third test', () => {
      // always pass
    })
  })
})

How often does it reproduce? Is there a required condition?

Always.

What is the expected behavior? Why is that the expected behavior?

beforeEach and afterEach should be running before every test even when nested, not when the nested suite starts running.

What do you see instead?

beforeEach and afterEach only run once for nested test suites.

Additional information

No response

[MoLow]

hmm, I think fixing this will be a breaking change. @nodejs/test_runner WDYT?
anyway, a fix can be for a test to inherit its parent beforeEach and afterEach hooks in the constructor.

[rochdev]

hmm, I think fixing this will be a breaking change

I think this depends if it's expected or not. If the current behaviour isn't the expected behaviour, then it's a bug that should simply be fixed. If it is the expected behaviour (which would surprise me since it differs from all describe APIs ever created) then it would either be a breaking change or it could be implemented behind an option.

anyway, a fix can be for a test to inherit its parent beforeEach and afterEach hooks in the constructor.

The problem is that currently they're executed for the nested suite, so if tests were to inherit, then the first test would have the beforeEach hook ran twice, and the last test would have the afterEach hook ran twice. This would thus only work if the hooks would stop triggering for suites and only trigger for tests.

[benjamingr]

hmm, I think fixing this will be a breaking change. https://github.com/orgs/nodejs/teams/test_runner WDYT?

I think it's just a bug and should probably just be fixed?

[ljharb]

It's named "before each" so if it doesn't run before each, then it's just a bug - I agree it should just be fixed.