How does AVA decide where to put snapshots

[electerious]

I've tests in two folders: src/ and test/. AVA puts the snapshots aside the test files when specifying src/ as AVA files and inside a snapshots folder when specifying test/ as AVA files. Both tests are the same, only the folder has changed.

How does AVA decide where to put snapshots? Shouldn't they always be inside a dedicated snapshot folder?

[novemberborn]

See:

ava/lib/snapshot-manager.js

Lines 396 to 405 in c57067b

	const parts = new Set(path.relative(projectDir, testDir).split(path.sep));
	if (parts.has('__tests__')) {
	return path.join(testDir, '__snapshots__');
	}
	if (parts.has('test') || parts.has('tests')) { // Accept tests, even though it's not in the default test patterns
	return path.join(testDir, 'snapshots');
	}
	return testDir;

__snapshots__ if the relative path to the test file contains a __tests__ directory, snapshots if it contains test or tests directories, and otherwise directly alongside the test file.

You can also configure snapshotDir, in which all snapshots are then placed, using the same nesting structure as your test files do.

[lukasholzer]

Sorry for being unclear, I meant having the possibility to have a snapshots dir aside to the test file.

For example following use case:

Unit tests -> next to the relevant source files.
Integration tests -> dedicated tests folder

Now If I create a snapshot inside my integration tests it will create its own snapshots folder and works like a charm.

for unit tests I would expect the same.

given file structure:

src/some/folder/
 - snapshots/
   - method-a.test.js.snap
   - method-a.test.js.md
   - other.test.js.snap
   - other.test.js.md
 - method-a.js
 - method-a.test.js
 - other.js
 - other.test.js
 - utils/
   - snapshots/
     - some-util.test.js.snap
     - some-util.test.js.md
   - some-util.js
   - some-util.test.js
tests/
 - snapshots/
   - integration.test.js.snap
   - integration.test.js.md
 - integration.test.js

[novemberborn]

for unit tests I would expect the same.

More to confirm my own recollection of how this works… currently the snapshots are also in src/some/folder next to method-a.test.js?

I don't know how we'd make that a configuration option; perhaps have snapshotDir take a function which then decides the directory? With a use-at-own-risk disclaimer if you give the same directory for test files that share a filename…

[lukasholzer]

https://stackblitz.com/edit/node-nvvgmx?file=package.json

That's how it behaves currently:

I would suggest adding a config option to the ava object in the package.json

{
   ...
   "ava": {
     "relativeSnapshotDir": true, // tells ava to always create a snapshot dir on the same dir level as the test is
     "snashotDir": "__snapshots", // can be used for renaming the directory
   }
}

default for the relativeSnapshotDir could be false to not break any existing behaviour

[novemberborn]

How about this, in an ava.config.js:

export default {
  snapshotDir (testFile) {
    return new URL('.', testFile)
  }
}

Here testFile is a file URL (string) and the return value must be a URL object.

[novemberborn]

Tracking in #2921.