cucumber / cucumber/godog

godog failed to compile testmain package - but should improve the error message

Open
#455 1 comment 1 reaction 0 assignees View on GitHub
Dominant language
Go
Stars
2.7k
Forks
280
Avg merge
2d 20h
Merged PRs (30d)
2

Description

Please answer these questions before submitting a bug report.

### What version of godog are you using?
```
> godog version
Godog version is: v0.12.0
```

### What version of Go are you using?
```
> go version
go version go1.15.15 linux/amd64
```

### What did you do?

First add a /test folder and executed `godog`.
This provides me godog example steps -> :+1:

Then added the example code in a `test.go` file and ran godog again

### What did you expect to see?
- Execution of the steps and that godog shows the implementation is still `godog.ErrPending`

### What did you see instead?
`failed to compile testmain package: exit status 1 - output: compile: -importcfg: open /tmp/go-build685074617/b001/importcfg.link: no such file or directory`

### Additional context

After lots of struggle, I found out that I had to rename the `test.go` file to `test_test.go` :exclamation:

- now I'm indeed seeing the expected results.

:red_circle: Strong request: Can the error message `failed to compile testmain package: exit status 1` possibly become more helpful, for example telling me that I'm still missing an actual file that ends in `_test.go` ? A more helpful message would have gotten me back on track way sooner then the cryptic error message that is currently being displayed.

Contributor guide

Open the contributing guide

Research direction

Reproduce the failure by creating a test folder with test.go and running godog, then compare it with the working test_test.go case. Start from the godog command path that reports “failed to compile testmain package” and inspect how the compiler output is surfaced. Done means a missing _test.go file produces a more helpful message while the existing working case still runs.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Assessment

Tech stack
go
Domain
testing
Issue type
Bug
Difficulty
3/5
Estimated time
1-2 days
Activity status
Stale
Clarity
Mostly clear
Newbie friendliness
35/100

Get new issues in your inbox

A short digest of beginner-friendly GitHub issues.