Cypress: Accept timezone as configuration

[brian-mann]

It remains to be seen if all browser respect this - but setting the TZ environment variable seems to make chrome change the timezone accordingly.

If this is the case we can accept this as a config value in cypress.json and automatically pass this in when spawning the browser.

[ZachGawlik]

This will be necessary for supporting snapshot visual regression testing, whether from Cypress itself or usage of third party libraries like cypress-image-snapshot. Without it, any page that shows timezone or relative time information won't be able to be covered by automated visual testing.

[Songyu-Wang]

Any update on this?

[jennifer-shehane]

@Songyu-Wang No work has been done on this issue

[jeremy-ebler-vineti]

Setting TZ=UTC worked for me.

[krokofant]

Does this actually work on Windows as well?

[mwarrens]

@jeremy-ebler-vineti, in which file did you put this?

[jennifer-shehane]

TZ should be set as an environment variable on the machine you are running the Cypress tests, so in our npm script, we have something like TZ=America/New_York cypress run

This should work on Windows machines, you just need to make sure to set the environment variable correctly.

Also, many CI providers have a way to set timezone in their configuration, which may be what you want to set up.

[Delfgou]

@jennifer-shehane Can you please give a code example? I can't get it to work. Thanks a lot

[jennifer-shehane]

In package.json:

"scripts": {
  "cypress:open": "TZ=America/New_York cypress open",
  "cypress:run": "TZ=America/New_York cypress run"
}

UTC example:

"scripts": {
  "cypress:open": "TZ=Etc/UTC yarn cypress open",
  "cypress:run": "TZ=Etc/UTC yarn cypress run"
}

In Circle config:

environment:
  TZ: "/usr/share/zoneinfo/America/New_York"

UTC example:

environment:
  TZ: '/usr/share/zoneinfo/UTC'

[Delfgou]

Thank you very much for the response. I have a cypress.json and a cypress.env.json. Does the environment part go in there? Or what do you mean with Circle config?

[jennifer-shehane]

@Delfgou https://circleci.com/docs/2.0/faq/#how-can-i-set-the-timezone-in-docker-images

[Delfgou]

Ah but then it only works when I run the test as part of the pipeline? Is there a way to mock the timezone when I run the test locally?

[jennifer-shehane]

Yes, with OS level environment variables as already mentioned. Please search in Google for "setting timezone via environment variables" for your OS.

[Delfgou]

ok thanks