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Registry entries and environment variables set in appveyor.yml not available in tests

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michael

Jan 14, 2017 @ 05:08 PM

Hi there,

In one of our project, an msi package needs to be installed before running our tests. The installation of the msi package creates registry entries that the tests relies upon to run. However, it seems that those entries are not available in the unit tests. Our tests are run by the automatic feature discovery from appveyor and are using nunit as a test engine.
I also tried to setup an environment variable from the appveyor.yml script but this variable is also not available in the tests.

The msi install is successful and is performed BEFORE the tests are run.
Any idea why the registry entries and /or the environment variables are not available from within the tests?

Any input on how to solve this issue?

Bests,
Michael

1. 1 Posted by Ilya Finkelshte... on Jan 16, 2017 @ 11:35 PM

   

   Hi Michael,

   Could you please run Test-path against those registry paths after package installed and before tests run?

   Also please send us how do you set environment variable and how is it being called from tests. If i is open source, just send us a links to respective part of appveyor.yml and test code.

   Thanks!
   Ilya.

   • Edit

2. 2 Posted by michael on Jan 17, 2017 @ 06:12 PM

   

   Hi Ilya,

   Well this is extremely weird. I spent quite some time today trying to
   understand what was going on. The project is not open source yet but I
   managed to reproduce the issue on one of my dummy projects that we use to
   tests different features of appveyor

   *The github project is *
   https://github.com/sbsuite/ConsoleApp/tree/develop

   I am running the same code to retrieve the variable from the registry in my
   tests and from an executable called in the after_test hook.
   https://github.com/sbsuite/ConsoleApp/blob/develop/tests/ConsoleApp.Tests/MainSpecs.cs#L37

   AND

   https://github.com/sbsuite/ConsoleApp/blob/develop/src/TestApp/Program.cs#L35

   This is where the TestApp is called in the appveyor file
   https://github.com/sbsuite/ConsoleApp/blob/develop/appveyor-bug.yml#L32

   and here is the output
   https://ci.appveyor.com/project/MichaelSevestre/consoleapp-lsyi2/build/0.4.2.5#L160

   Now if I comment the test out, the after_test hook is called and the
   TestApp program is called.
   *This program can in turn READ from the registry*!! Here is the output
   https://ci.appveyor.com/project/MichaelSevestre/consoleapp-lsyi2/build/0.4.2.7#L190

   Any idea what's going on here?
   THE CODE IS EXACTLY THE SAME between the TestApp and the Test.dll

   Note that calling Test-Path does not work.
   Test-Path -Path "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE:\SOFTWARE\BTS Products\MikTEX"
   False
   Test-Path -Path "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE:\SOFTWARE\BTS
   Products\MikTEX\InstallDir"
   False
   Test-Path -Path "HKLM:\SOFTWARE\BTS Products\MikTEX"
   False
   Test-Path -Path "HKLM:\SOFTWARE\BTS Products\MikTEX\InstallDir"
   False
   event though the same key can be read from the TestApp on the line before.
   I am not sure why but the doc also says that this is not something you can
   really rely on

   >Test-Path does not work correctly with all Windows PowerShell providers.
   For example, you can use Test-Path to test the path of a registry key, but
   if you use it to test the path of a registry entry, it always returns
   $False, even if the registry entry is present.

   To answer your second question, the way I defined the environment variable
   (as a workaround) is
   environment:
     MIK_TEX_INSTALL_DIR: 'C:\MikTex\'

   But the variable MIK_TEX_INSTALL_DIR is not available from
   Environment.GetEnvironmentVariable(MIK_TEX_INSTALL_DIR). Is there another
   way to access the Environment variable?

   Last but not least, is there a way to ensure that the build script does not
   stop if a test is failing?

   Let me know if you have any questions and thanks for your help

   Bests
   Michael

   • Edit

3. 3 Posted by Ilya Finkelshte... on Jan 18, 2017 @ 01:28 AM

   

   OK, problem is that msi seems to update 32-bit registry keys. Probably TestProgram runs as 32-bit process and therefore sees that path. But nunit runner runs as 64-bit process and does not see this. I was able to make it pass either of one of 2 tricks:

   • run test manually with command nunit3-console.exe "C:\projects\consoleapp\tests\ConsoleApp.Tests\bin\Release\ConsoleApp.Tests.dll" --x86. Note --x86 part (Run tests in an x86 process on 64 bit systems).

   • change _mikTEXRegistryPath from @"HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\BTS Products\MikTEX" to @"HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\BTS Products\MikTEX"

   What about Environment.GetEnvironmentVariable(MIK_TEX_INSTALL_DIR) it should work, I just think that this should be string value and therefore surrounded with commas like Environment.GetEnvironmentVariable("MIK_TEX_INSTALL_DIR"). If this still does not work it would be great if you provide me with small repro in public repository like this one.

   Please let us know you are unblocked now.

   Thanks!
   Ilya.

   • Edit

4. 4 Posted by michael on Jan 18, 2017 @ 02:17 AM

   

   Hi Ilya,

   Thanks so much for your quick feedback. I suspected indeed some weirdness
   with 32-bit vs 64-bit.
   The issue with the Environment variable is still not clear. You are right
   it should be a string but this is was a constant defined as a string and I
   just copied the line of code sorry
   private const string MIK_TEX_INSTALL_DIR = "MIK_TEX_INSTALL_DIR";

   I am going to try again with ENV Variable to ensure that I did not mess up
   something.

   Thanks so much for your help,

   Bests,
   Michael

   • Edit

5. Ilya Finkelshteyn closed this discussion on Aug 25, 2018 @ 02:14 AM.