Gradle: How to Display Test Results in the Console in Real Time?

Question

Here is my fancy version:

import org.gradle.api.tasks.testing.logging.TestExceptionFormat
import org.gradle.api.tasks.testing.logging.TestLogEvent

tasks.withType(Test) {
    testLogging {
        // set options for log level LIFECYCLE
        events TestLogEvent.FAILED,
               TestLogEvent.PASSED,
               TestLogEvent.SKIPPED,
               TestLogEvent.STANDARD_OUT
        exceptionFormat TestExceptionFormat.FULL
        showExceptions true
        showCauses true
        showStackTraces true

        // set options for log level DEBUG and INFO
        debug {
            events TestLogEvent.STARTED,
                   TestLogEvent.FAILED,
                   TestLogEvent.PASSED,
                   TestLogEvent.SKIPPED,
                   TestLogEvent.STANDARD_ERROR,
                   TestLogEvent.STANDARD_OUT
            exceptionFormat TestExceptionFormat.FULL
        }
        info.events = debug.events
        info.exceptionFormat = debug.exceptionFormat

        afterSuite { desc, result ->
            if (!desc.parent) { // will match the outermost suite
                def output = "Results: ${result.resultType} (${result.testCount} tests, ${result.successfulTestCount} passed, ${result.failedTestCount} failed, ${result.skippedTestCount} skipped)"
                def startItem = '|  ', endItem = '  |'
                def repeatLength = startItem.length() + output.length() + endItem.length()
                println('\n' + ('-' * repeatLength) + '\n' + startItem + output + endItem + '\n' + ('-' * repeatLength))
            }
        }
    }
}

You could run Gradle with INFO logging level on the command line. It'll show you the result of each test while they are running. Downside is that you will get far more output for other tasks also.

gradle test -i

You can add a Groovy closure inside your build.gradle file that does the logging for you:

test {
    afterTest { desc, result -> 
        logger.quiet "Executing test ${desc.name} [${desc.className}] with result: ${result.resultType}"
    }
}

On your console it then reads like this:

:compileJava UP-TO-DATE
:compileGroovy
:processResources
:classes
:jar
:assemble
:compileTestJava
:compileTestGroovy
:processTestResources
:testClasses
:test
Executing test maturesShouldBeCharged11DollarsForDefaultMovie [movietickets.MovieTicketsTests] with result: SUCCESS
Executing test studentsShouldBeCharged8DollarsForDefaultMovie [movietickets.MovieTicketsTests] with result: SUCCESS
Executing test seniorsShouldBeCharged6DollarsForDefaultMovie [movietickets.MovieTicketsTests] with result: SUCCESS
Executing test childrenShouldBeCharged5DollarsAnd50CentForDefaultMovie [movietickets.MovieTicketsTests] with result: SUCCESS
:check
:build

Since version 1.1 Gradle supports much more options to log test output. With those options at hand you can achieve a similar output with the following configuration:

test {
    testLogging {
        events "passed", "skipped", "failed"
    }
}

Disclaimer: I am the developer of the Gradle Test Logger Plugin.

You can simply use the Gradle Test Logger Plugin to print beautiful logs on the console. The plugin uses sensible defaults to satisfy most users with little or no configuration but also offers a number of themes and configuration options to suit everyone.

Examples

Standard theme

Mocha theme

Usage

plugins {
    id 'com.adarshr.test-logger' version '<version>'
}

Make sure you always get the latest version from Gradle Central.

Configuration

You don't need any configuration at all. However, the plugin offers a few options. This can be done as follows (default values shown):

testlogger {
    // pick a theme - mocha, standard, plain, mocha-parallel, standard-parallel or plain-parallel
    theme 'standard'

    // set to false to disable detailed failure logs
    showExceptions true

    // set to false to hide stack traces
    showStackTraces true

    // set to true to remove any filtering applied to stack traces
    showFullStackTraces false

    // set to false to hide exception causes
    showCauses true

    // set threshold in milliseconds to highlight slow tests
    slowThreshold 2000

    // displays a breakdown of passes, failures and skips along with total duration
    showSummary true

    // set to true to see simple class names
    showSimpleNames false

    // set to false to hide passed tests
    showPassed true

    // set to false to hide skipped tests
    showSkipped true

    // set to false to hide failed tests
    showFailed true

    // enable to see standard out and error streams inline with the test results
    showStandardStreams false

    // set to false to hide passed standard out and error streams
    showPassedStandardStreams true

    // set to false to hide skipped standard out and error streams
    showSkippedStandardStreams true

    // set to false to hide failed standard out and error streams
    showFailedStandardStreams true
}

I hope you will enjoy using it.

As stefanglase answered:

adding the following code to your build.gradle (since version 1.1) works fine for output on passed, skipped and failed tests.

test {
    testLogging {
        events "passed", "skipped", "failed", "standardOut", "standardError"
    }
}

What I want to say additionally (I found out this is a problem for starters) is that the gradle test command executes the test only one time per change.

So if you are running it the second time there will be no output on test results. You can also see this in the building output: gradle then says UP-TO-DATE on tests. So its not executed a n-th time.

Smart gradle!

If you want to force the test cases to run, use gradle cleanTest test.

This is slightly off topic but I hope it will help some newbies.

edit

As sparc_spread stated in the comments:

If you want to force gradle to always run fresh tests (which might not always be a good idea) you can add outputs.upToDateWhen {false} to testLogging { [...] }. Continue reading here.

Peace.

Add this to build.gradle to stop gradle from swallowing stdout and stderr.

test {
    testLogging.showStandardStreams = true
}

It's documented here.