NUnit: Global setup fixture not used when fixture to run is specified on command line

Question

I have a unit test assembly, using NUnit, that contains thousands of tests in various namespaces and fixtures.

I want to run some global setup before any tests in my assembly are run (configuring Trace listeners). I can do this by creating a [SetUpFixture] in the global namespace.

This works fine when running all tests e.g.:
nunit.exe testassembly.exe

However, if I specify a fixture to test, then the global setup is not run, e.g.:
nunit.exe testassembly.exe /fixture=MyTests

How do I provide global setup that is always run before any tests in an assembly are run?

UPDATE:

Note that the console test runner will work fine using the /run option, i.e. global setup is run even when only a particular test fixture is run. I'm after a solution for the GUI test runner.

Answer 1

Charlie Poole suggested an alternative in the NUnit discussion forum.

The recommended workaround is to include all setup and teardown at the fixture level using using [TestFixtureSetup] and [TestFixtureTearDown].

Global setup and teardown can be achieved like this by using a base class for the test fixtures to share code between fixtures. For global setup meant to be run once only before any fixture, a flag can be used to prevent it being executed multiple times.

P.S. The /fixture option is deprecated theses days.