Cypress: Fixtures aliasing not working as expected?

[valentinogagliardi]

• Operating System: Fedora 26
• Cypress Version: 1.1.1
• Browser Version: Chrome 62

Is this a Feature or Bug?

Probably a bug

Current behavior:

When using cy.fixture("users/admin").as("adminData"); I can't access adminData

Desired behavior:

I should be able to access this.adminData

How to reproduce:

Call this.adminData.email after a fixture has been aliased

Test code:

describe("Knowledge Base Application", () => {

  it("Admin should be able to login", () => {
    cy.fixture("users/admin").as("adminData");

    cy.visit("/login");

    cy
      .get('input[name="email"]')
      .type(this.adminData.email)
      .should("have.value", this.adminData.email);

    cy
      .get('input[name="password"]')
      .type(this.adminData.password)
      .should("have.value", this.adminData.password);

    cy.get("form").submit();

    cy.location("pathname").should("eq", "/home");
  });
});

Fixture code

cypress/fixtures/users/admin.js

const admin = {
  name: "Valentino",
  email: "[email protected]",
  password: "secret"
};

[brian-mann]

Not a bug. Cypress commands are async. It's impossible for this.adminData to be defined at the moment you're using it.

This doc explains this exact scenario: https://docs.cypress.io/guides/core-concepts/variables-and-aliases.html#Aliases

[innerdaze]

The reason OP probably though it was a bug is because the docs for fixture claim the following is valid on it's own:

cy.fixture('users.json').as('usersData')

[brian-mann]

It is valid on its own, so long as by the time you access it with this.*, you've nested those cypress commands in a .then().

Alternatively you could use cy.get('@usersData').then((users) => ... )

[kud]

I agree, the doc isn't clear about that. I did the same mistake.

[jennifer-shehane]

I created a new issue in our docs to document this better here: https://github.com/cypress-io/cypress-documentation/issues/722. Our documentation is open source and contributions are welcome. 😄

[aaditya-kumar-harness]

@brian-mann Any idea why this is not working (v3.1.0):

describe('Knowledge Base Application', () => {
  before(() => {
    cy.fixture('users/admin').as('adminData')
  })

  it('test1', () => {
    cy.get('@adminData')
      .then(adminData => { // able to read adminData
        cy.log(adminData)
      })
  })

  it('test2', () => {
    cy.get('@adminData')
      .then(adminData => { // **throws exception: CypressError: cy.get() could not find a registered alias for: '@adminData'. You have not aliased anything yet.**
        cy.log(adminData)
      })
  })
})

This works fine if I move the fixture setup from before to beforeEach.

[azollai]

@aaditya-kumar-harness For some reason the fixtures you are initializing in before() method will only be accessable from the first test (Cypress implemented it like that.) If you want to access from all of it, you have to use beforeEach.

[jennifer-shehane]

@aaditya-kumar-harness relevant thread: https://github.com/cypress-io/cypress/issues/665

[matteocollina]

It works. Being asynchronous you have to wait for the fixture to be loaded

cy.fixture("users/admin.json").as("admin")
cy.get('@admin')
  .then((admin) => {
      cy.get("#selector1")
          .type(admin.username)
      cy.get("#selector2")
          .type(admin.password)
  })