protractor: test download file without knowing filename

Question

I followed this answer and it looks almost the thing I need.

The problem there is that he already knows the filename and I am doing e2e test for downloading a file, but the filename depends on the current time (even with milliseconds) so I don't really know the name (or it would be very difficult to get it).

I think I am missing something very simple here, but I was thinking of two ways:

Recreate filenames (with the same function that returns the name of this file) and start checking for existance of a file with that name, if it doesn't exist, then move to the next millisecond until I hit the right name.
Check the download folder for existance of "any" file, if I find one there then it should be the file I am downloading (for this case I don't know how to check an entire folder in protractor).

Hope you guys could help with these alternatives (I would like some help with point 2) or maybe give me a better one. Thanks

Just the first thought came to my head: I'd probably clean up the download directory in the test set up and wait for any file (or file matching a specific glob pattern) - have not done that though, but maybe you can build something recursive using the `glob` package ([example](http://stackoverflow.com/a/21320251/771848)) - search for the file until found, or the "timeout" happened - you can let jasmine control the timeout, or measure it manually yourself..thanks. — alecxe, Dec 11 '16 at 22:35
@alecxe I ended up following your suggestion, I just didn't know what to use for waiting, `setTimeout` or `browser.wait` — eLRuLL, Dec 19 '16 at 16:37
@alecxe it would be good if the browser itself would know about the browser it is downloading — eLRuLL, Dec 19 '16 at 17:06

score 7 · Accepted Answer · edited Dec 19 '16 at 23:55

7

I ended up following @alecxe's suggestion and here is my answer:

var glob = require("glob");

browser.driver.wait(function () {
    var filesArray = glob.sync(filePattern);
    if (typeof filesArray !== 'undefined' && filesArray.length > 0) {
        // this check is necessary because `glob.sync` can return
        // an empty list, which will be considered as a valid output
        // making the wait to end.
        return filesArray;
    }
}, timeout).then(function (filesArray) {
    var filename = filesArray[0];
    // now we have the filename and can do whatever we want
});

edited Dec 19 '16 at 23:55

alecxe

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answered Dec 19 '16 at 23:43

eLRuLL

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Note: I've cross-reposted it to the SQA site with some extra explanation: http://sqa.stackexchange.com/a/24439/5574. – alecxe Dec 20 '16 at 05:20
1

@Nick it is a "glob" pattern like `*.xls` for example. – alecxe Jan 06 '17 at 22:19

score 4 · Answer 2 · answered Dec 22 '16 at 02:58

Just to add a little bit more background information to the @elRuLL's answer.

The main idea is based on 2 things:

browser.wait() fits the problem perfectly - it would execute a function continuously until it evaluates to true or a timeout is reached. And, the timeout mechanism is already built-in.
glob module provides a way to look for filenames matching a certain pattern (in the worst case, you can wait for the *.* - basically, any file to appear)

protractor: test download file without knowing filename

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