How to specify test directory for mocha?

Question

Mocha tries to find test files under test by default, how do I specify another dir, e.g. server-test?

Answer 1

If in node.js, some new configurations as of Mocha v6:

Option 1: Create .mocharc.json in project's root directory:

{
  "spec": "path/to/test/files"
}

Option 2: add mocha property in project's package.json:

{
  ...

  "mocha": {
    "spec": "path/to/test/files"
  }
}

More options are here.

Answer 2

If you are using nodejs, in your package.json under scripts

1. For global (-g) installations: "test": "mocha server-test" or "test": "mocha server-test/**/*.js" for subdocuments
2. For project installations: "test": "node_modules/mocha/bin/mocha server-test" or "test": "node_modules/mocha/bin/mocha server-test/**/*.js" for subdocuments

Then just run your tests normally as npm test

Answer 3

Edit : This option is deprecated : https://mochajs.org/#mochaopts

---

If you want to do it by still just running mocha on the command line, but wanted to run the tests in a folder ./server-tests instead of ./test, create a file at ./test/mocha.opts with just this in the file:

server-tests

If you wanted to run everything in that folder and subdirectories, put this into test/mocha.opts

server-tests
--recursive

mocha.opts are the arguments passed in via the command line, so making the first line just the directory you want to change the tests too will redirect from ./test/

Answer 4

Here's one way, if you have subfolders in your test folder e.g.

/test
/test/server-test
/test/other-test

Then in linux you can use the find command to list all *.js files recursively and pass it to mocha:

mocha $(find test -name '*.js')

Answer 5

Don't use the -g or --grep option, that pattern operates on the name of the test inside of it(), not the filesystem. The current documentation is misleading and/or outright wrong concerning this. To limit the entire command to a portion of the filesystem, you can pass a pattern as the last argument (its not a flag).

For example, this command will set your reporter to spec but will only test js files immediately inside of the server-test directory:

mocha --reporter spec server-test/*.js

This command will do the same as above, plus it will only run the test cases where the it() string/definition of a test begins with "Fnord:":

mocha --reporter spec --grep "Fnord:" server-test/*.js

Answer 6

Use this:

mocha server-test

Or if you have subdirectories use this:

mocha "server-test/**/*.js"

Note the use of double quotes. If you omit them you may not be able to run tests in subdirectories.