How to exclude certain tests in the Visual Studio Test Runner?

Question

I have attributes on certain tests that I ideally don't want to run on every build. Most of my tests are normal unit tests and I do want them to run on every build.

So: how can I exclude a test by category or project type?

For example, I'd like to exclude CodedUItests:

[CodedUITest]
public class SearchViewTests

...or exclude tests in a given TestCategory:

[TestMethod]
[TestCategory("Database Integration")]
public void ContactRepositoryGetByIdWithIdExpectCorrectContact()

I particularly want to exclude the coded UI tests as they disrupt my ability to continue working, whereas all the other tests will happily run in the background without disturbing me.

Originally this question was about Visual Studio 2012, so I'd prefer solutions that work in that version and higher.

Solution 1

The only "solution" (or better workaround) I found to work is to specify a "FullName" filter. Basically I usually structure my solution like

• ProjectA
• ProjectA.UnitTests
• ProjectA.IntegrationTests

and so on. Now I can specify a filter in the Test Explorer like FullName: "UnitTests" which seems to work.
(I'd expected to be able to use a regex within the search name but it doesn't seem to be supported.)

Solution 2

TL;DR version:

Other answers have commented on workarounds and use of the more recent Traits options. However, none quite tell you how to specifically exclude tests for a trait. To do so, simply use a - (minus) to negate a filter in the search box, e.g.:

-Trait:"DatabaseIntegration"

This will exclude all tests with that trait. The MSDN documentation on these features has the following explanation:

To exclude a subset of the results of a filter, use the following syntax:

FilterName:"Criteria" -FilterName:"SubsetCriteria"

For example,

FullName:"MyClass" - FullName:"PerfTest"

returns all tests that include "MyClass" in their name except those tests that also include "PerfTest" in their name.

Solution 3

The Visual Studio 2012 Update 1 CTP has added support for grouping by projects and categories (traits) to the Test Explorer. http://blogs.msdn.com/b/visualstudioalm/archive/2012/10/08/visual-studio-2012-update-1-ctp.aspx http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=268021

Solution 4

You can use the search filter in Unit Text Explorer.

In the new Test Exlorer shipped with 2012, you can group tests by 'Test Results', 'FileName',... etc but in RTM build group/search by 'TestCategory' is not present from Test Explorer. However there is a filter in commandline and TeamBuild based on TestCategory (Running selective unit tests in VS 2012 RC using TestCaseFilter) in VS2012.

From a member of VS dev Team, they understood the importance of this missing feature. It is in the backlog, and it should be available in furutre builds/updates.

The following blog provides more details: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/vikramagrawal/archive/2012/07/23/running-selective-unit-tests-in-vs-2012-rc-using-testcasefilter.aspx

Solution 5

There's a filter you can apply on the Test Explorer. Trait:"UnitTest" this filter will pickup only the tests with TestCategory("UnitTest") attribute ignoring the others.

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