Gradle: How to Display Test Results in the Console in Real Time?

Testing Problem Overview

I would like to see test results ( system.out/err, log messages from components being tested ) as they run in the same console I run:

gradle test

And not wait until tests are done to look at the test reports ( that are only generated when tests are completed, so I can't "tail -f" anything while tests are running )

Testing Solutions

Solution 1 - Testing

Here is my fancy version:

import org.gradle.api.tasks.testing.logging.TestExceptionFormat
import org.gradle.api.tasks.testing.logging.TestLogEvent

tasks.withType(Test) {
    testLogging {
        // set options for log level LIFECYCLE
        events TestLogEvent.FAILED,
               TestLogEvent.PASSED,
               TestLogEvent.SKIPPED,
               TestLogEvent.STANDARD_OUT
        exceptionFormat TestExceptionFormat.FULL
        showExceptions true
        showCauses true
        showStackTraces true

        // set options for log level DEBUG and INFO
        debug {
            events TestLogEvent.STARTED,
                   TestLogEvent.FAILED,
                   TestLogEvent.PASSED,
                   TestLogEvent.SKIPPED,
                   TestLogEvent.STANDARD_ERROR,
                   TestLogEvent.STANDARD_OUT
            exceptionFormat TestExceptionFormat.FULL
        }
        info.events = debug.events
        info.exceptionFormat = debug.exceptionFormat

        afterSuite { desc, result ->
            if (!desc.parent) { // will match the outermost suite
                def output = "Results: ${result.resultType} (${result.testCount} tests, ${result.successfulTestCount} passed, ${result.failedTestCount} failed, ${result.skippedTestCount} skipped)"
                def startItem = '|  ', endItem = '  |'
                def repeatLength = startItem.length() + output.length() + endItem.length()
                println('\n' + ('-' * repeatLength) + '\n' + startItem + output + endItem + '\n' + ('-' * repeatLength))
            }
        }
    }
}

Solution 2 - Testing

You could run Gradle with INFO logging level on the command line. It'll show you the result of each test while they are running. Downside is that you will get far more output for other tasks also.

gradle test -i

Solution 3 - Testing

Disclaimer: I am the developer of the Gradle Test Logger Plugin.

You can simply use the Gradle Test Logger Plugin to print beautiful logs on the console. The plugin uses sensible defaults to satisfy most users with little or no configuration but also offers a number of themes and configuration options to suit everyone.

Examples

Standard theme

Mocha theme

Usage

plugins {
    id 'com.adarshr.test-logger' version '<version>'
}

Make sure you always get the latest version from Gradle Central.

Configuration

You don't need any configuration at all. However, the plugin offers a few options. This can be done as follows (default values shown):

testlogger {
    // pick a theme - mocha, standard, plain, mocha-parallel, standard-parallel or plain-parallel
    theme 'standard'

    // set to false to disable detailed failure logs
    showExceptions true

    // set to false to hide stack traces
    showStackTraces true

    // set to true to remove any filtering applied to stack traces
    showFullStackTraces false

    // set to false to hide exception causes
    showCauses true

    // set threshold in milliseconds to highlight slow tests
    slowThreshold 2000

    // displays a breakdown of passes, failures and skips along with total duration
    showSummary true

    // set to true to see simple class names
    showSimpleNames false

    // set to false to hide passed tests
    showPassed true

    // set to false to hide skipped tests
    showSkipped true

    // set to false to hide failed tests
    showFailed true

    // enable to see standard out and error streams inline with the test results
    showStandardStreams false

    // set to false to hide passed standard out and error streams
    showPassedStandardStreams true

    // set to false to hide skipped standard out and error streams
    showSkippedStandardStreams true

    // set to false to hide failed standard out and error streams
    showFailedStandardStreams true
}

I hope you will enjoy using it.

Solution 4 - Testing

You can add a Groovy closure inside your build.gradle file that does the logging for you:

test {
    afterTest { desc, result -> 
        logger.quiet "Executing test ${desc.name} [${desc.className}] with result: ${result.resultType}"
    }
}

On your console it then reads like this:

:compileJava UP-TO-DATE
:compileGroovy
:processResources
:classes
:jar
:assemble
:compileTestJava
:compileTestGroovy
:processTestResources
:testClasses
:test
Executing test maturesShouldBeCharged11DollarsForDefaultMovie [movietickets.MovieTicketsTests] with result: SUCCESS
Executing test studentsShouldBeCharged8DollarsForDefaultMovie [movietickets.MovieTicketsTests] with result: SUCCESS
Executing test seniorsShouldBeCharged6DollarsForDefaultMovie [movietickets.MovieTicketsTests] with result: SUCCESS
Executing test childrenShouldBeCharged5DollarsAnd50CentForDefaultMovie [movietickets.MovieTicketsTests] with result: SUCCESS
:check
:build

Since version 1.1 Gradle supports much more options to log test output. With those options at hand you can achieve a similar output with the following configuration:

test {
    testLogging {
        events "passed", "skipped", "failed"
    }
}

Solution 5 - Testing

As stefanglase answered:

adding the following code to your build.gradle (since version 1.1) works fine for output on passed, skipped and failed tests.

test {
    testLogging {
        events "passed", "skipped", "failed", "standardOut", "standardError"
    }
}

What I want to say additionally (I found out this is a problem for starters) is that the gradle test command executes the test only one time per change.

So if you are running it the second time there will be no output on test results. You can also see this in the building output: gradle then says UP-TO-DATE on tests. So its not executed a n-th time.

Smart gradle!

If you want to force the test cases to run, use gradle cleanTest test.

This is slightly off topic but I hope it will help some newbies.

edit

As sparc_spread stated in the comments:

If you want to force gradle to always run fresh tests (which might not always be a good idea) you can add outputs.upToDateWhen {false} to testLogging { [...] }. Continue reading here.

Peace.

Solution 6 - Testing

Add this to build.gradle to stop gradle from swallowing stdout and stderr.

test {
    testLogging.showStandardStreams = true
}

It's documented here.

Solution 7 - Testing

'test' task does not work for Android plugin, for Android plugin use the following:

// Test Logging
tasks.withType(Test) {
    testLogging {
        events "started", "passed", "skipped", "failed"
    }
}

See the following: https://stackoverflow.com/a/31665341/3521637

Solution 8 - Testing

As a follow up to Shubham's great answer I like to suggest using enum values instead of strings. Please take a look at the documentation of the TestLogging class.

import org.gradle.api.tasks.testing.logging.TestExceptionFormat
import org.gradle.api.tasks.testing.logging.TestLogEvent

tasks.withType(Test) {
    testLogging {
        events TestLogEvent.FAILED,
               TestLogEvent.PASSED,
               TestLogEvent.SKIPPED,
               TestLogEvent.STANDARD_ERROR,
               TestLogEvent.STANDARD_OUT
        exceptionFormat TestExceptionFormat.FULL
        showCauses true
        showExceptions true
        showStackTraces true
    }
}

Solution 9 - Testing

My favourite minimalistic version based on Shubham Chaudhary answer.

Put this in build.gradle file:

test {
    afterSuite { desc, result ->
	if (!desc.parent)
	    println("${result.resultType} " +
	        "(${result.testCount} tests, " +
	        "${result.successfulTestCount} successes, " +
	        "${result.failedTestCount} failures, " +
	        "${result.skippedTestCount} skipped)")
    }
}

Solution 10 - Testing

In Gradle using Android plugin:

gradle.projectsEvaluated {
    tasks.withType(Test) { task ->
        task.afterTest { desc, result ->
            println "Executing test ${desc.name} [${desc.className}] with result: ${result.resultType}"
        }
    }
}

Then the output will be:

> Executing test testConversionMinutes [org.example.app.test.DurationTest] with result: SUCCESS

Solution 11 - Testing

If you have a build.gradle.kts written in Kotlin DSL you can print test results with (I was developing a kotlin multi-platform project, with no "java" plugin applied):

tasks.withType<AbstractTestTask> {
    afterSuite(KotlinClosure2({ desc: TestDescriptor, result: TestResult ->
        if (desc.parent == null) { // will match the outermost suite
            println("Results: ${result.resultType} (${result.testCount} tests, ${result.successfulTestCount} successes, ${result.failedTestCount} failures, ${result.skippedTestCount} skipped)")
        }
    }))
}

Solution 12 - Testing

Just add the following closure to your build.gradle. the output will be printed after the execution of every test.

test{
	useJUnitPlatform()
	afterTest { desc, result ->
		def output = "Class name: ${desc.className}, Test name: ${desc.name},  (Test status: ${result.resultType})"
		println( '\n' + output)
	}
}

Solution 13 - Testing

Merge of Shubham's great answer and JJD use enum instead of string

tasks.withType(Test) {
   testLogging {
       // set options for log level LIFECYCLE
       events TestLogEvent.PASSED,
            TestLogEvent.SKIPPED, TestLogEvent.FAILED, TestLogEvent.STANDARD_OUT
       showExceptions true
       exceptionFormat TestExceptionFormat.FULL
       showCauses true
       showStackTraces true

    // set options for log level DEBUG and INFO
       debug {
        events TestLogEvent.STARTED, TestLogEvent.PASSED, TestLogEvent.SKIPPED, TestLogEvent.FAILED, TestLogEvent.STANDARD_OUT, TestLogEvent.STANDARD_ERROR
        exceptionFormat TestExceptionFormat.FULL
       }
       info.events = debug.events
       info.exceptionFormat = debug.exceptionFormat

       afterSuite { desc, result ->
           if (!desc.parent) { // will match the outermost suite
               def output = "Results: ${result.resultType} (${result.testCount} tests, ${result.successfulTestCount} successes, ${result.failedTestCount} failures, ${result.skippedTestCount} skipped)"
               def startItem = '|  ', endItem = '  |'
               def repeatLength = startItem.length() + output.length() + endItem.length()
               println('\n' + ('-' * repeatLength) + '\n' + startItem + output + endItem + '\n' + ('-' * repeatLength))
           }
       }
   }
}

Solution 14 - Testing

For Android, this works nicely:

android {
...

testOptions {
    unitTests.all {
        testLogging {
            outputs.upToDateWhen { false }
            events "passed", "failed", "skipped", "standardError"
            showCauses true
            showExceptions true
        }
    }
}

}

See Running Android unit / instrumentation tests from the console

Solution 15 - Testing

Following on from Benjamin Muschko's answer (19 March 2011), you can use the -i flag along with grep, to filter out 1000s of unwanted lines. Examples:

Strong filter - Only display each unit test name and test result and the overall build status. Setup errors or exceptions are not displayed.

./gradlew test -i | grep -E " > |BUILD"

Soft filter - Display each unit test name and test result, as well as setup errors/exceptions. But it will also include some irrelevant info:

./gradlew test -i | grep -E -v "^Executing |^Creating |^Parsing |^Using |^Merging |^Download |^title=Compiling|^AAPT|^future=|^task=|:app:|V/InstrumentationResultParser:"

Soft filter, Alternative syntax: (search tokens are split into individual strings)

./gradlew test -i | grep -v -e "^Executing " -e "^Creating " -e "^Parsing " -e "^Using " -e "^Merging " -e "^Download " -e "^title=Compiling" -e "^AAPT" -e "^future=" -e "^task=" -e ":app:" -e "V/InstrumentationResultParser:"

Explanation of how it works:

The first command is ./gradlew test -i and "-i" means "Info/Verbose" mode, which prints the result of each test in real-time, but also displays large amounts of unwanted debug lines.

So the output of the first command, ./gradlew test -i, is piped to a second command grep, which will filter out many unwanted lines, based on a regular expression. "-E" enables the regular expression mode for a single string; "-e" enables regular expressions for multiple strings; and "|" in the regex string means "or".

In the strong filter, a unit test name and test result is allowed to display using " > ", and the overall status is allowed with "BUILD".

In the soft filter, the "-v" flag means "not containing" and "^" means "start of line". So it strips out all lines that start with "Executing " or start with "Creating ", etc.

Example for Android instrumentation unit tests, with gradle 5.1:

./gradlew connectedDebugAndroidTest --continue -i | grep -v -e \
    "^Transforming " -e "^Skipping " -e "^Cache " -e "^Performance " -e "^Creating " -e \
    "^Parsing " -e "^file " -e "ddms: " -e ":app:" -e "V/InstrumentationResultParser:"

Example for Jacoco unit test coverage, with gradle 4.10:

./gradlew createDebugCoverageReport --continue -i | grep -E -v "^Executing |^Creating |^Parsing |^Using |^Merging |^Download |^title=Compiling|^AAPT|^future=|^task=|:app:|V/InstrumentationResultParser:"

Solution 16 - Testing

For those using Kotlin DSL, you can do:

tasks {
  named<Test>("test") {
    testLogging.showStandardStreams = true
  }
}

Solution 17 - Testing

If you are using jupiter and none of the answers work, consider verifying it is setup correctly:

test {
    useJUnitPlatform()
    outputs.upToDateWhen { false }
}

dependencies {
    testImplementation 'org.junit.jupiter:junit-jupiter-api:5.7.0'
    testRuntimeOnly 'org.junit.jupiter:junit-jupiter-engine:5.7.0'
}

And then try the accepted answers

Solution 18 - Testing

I've written a test logger for Kotlin DSL. You can put this block on your project scope build.gradle.kts file.

subprojects {
    tasks.withType(Test::class.java) {
        testLogging {
            showCauses = false
            showExceptions = false
            showStackTraces = false
            showStandardStreams = false

            val ansiReset = "\u001B[0m"
            val ansiGreen = "\u001B[32m"
            val ansiRed = "\u001B[31m"
            val ansiYellow = "\u001B[33m"

            fun getColoredResultType(resultType: ResultType): String {
                return when (resultType) {
                    ResultType.SUCCESS -> "$ansiGreen $resultType $ansiReset"
                    ResultType.FAILURE -> "$ansiRed $resultType $ansiReset"
                    ResultType.SKIPPED -> "$ansiYellow $resultType $ansiReset"
                }
            }

            afterTest(
                KotlinClosure2({ desc: TestDescriptor, result: TestResult ->
                    println("${desc.className} | ${desc.displayName} = ${getColoredResultType(result.resultType)}")
                })
            )

            afterSuite(
                KotlinClosure2({ desc: TestDescriptor, result: TestResult ->
                    if (desc.parent == null) {
                        println("Result: ${result.resultType} (${result.testCount} tests, ${result.successfulTestCount} passed, ${result.failedTestCount} failed, ${result.skippedTestCount} skipped)")
                    }
                })
            )
        }
    }
}

Solution 19 - Testing

A more comprehensive response for those using th Kotlin DSL:

subprojects {
    // all the other stuff
    // ...
    tasks.named<Test>("test") {
        useJUnitPlatform()
        setupTestLogging()
    }
}

fun Test.setupTestLogging() {
    testLogging {
        events(
            org.gradle.api.tasks.testing.logging.TestLogEvent.FAILED,
            org.gradle.api.tasks.testing.logging.TestLogEvent.PASSED,
            org.gradle.api.tasks.testing.logging.TestLogEvent.SKIPPED,
            org.gradle.api.tasks.testing.logging.TestLogEvent.STANDARD_OUT,
        )
        exceptionFormat = org.gradle.api.tasks.testing.logging.TestExceptionFormat.FULL
        showExceptions = true
        showCauses = true
        showStackTraces = true

        addTestListener(object : TestListener {
            override fun beforeSuite(suite: TestDescriptor) {}
            override fun beforeTest(testDescriptor: TestDescriptor) {}
            override fun afterTest(testDescriptor: TestDescriptor, result: TestResult) {}
            override fun afterSuite(suite: TestDescriptor, result: TestResult) {
                if (suite.parent != null) { // will match the outermost suite
                    val output = "Results: ${result.resultType} (${result.testCount} tests, ${result.successfulTestCount} passed, ${result.failedTestCount} failed, ${result.skippedTestCount} skipped)"
                    val startItem = "|  "
                    val endItem = "  |"
                    val repeatLength = startItem.length + output.length + endItem.length
                    val messages = """
                        ${(1..repeatLength).joinToString("") { "-" }}
                        $startItem$output$endItem
                        ${(1..repeatLength).joinToString("") { "-" }}
                    """.trimIndent()
                    println(messages)
                }
            }
        })
    }
}

This should produce an output close to @odemolliens answers.

Content Type	Original Author	Original Content on Stackoverflow
Question	tolitius	View Question on Stackoverflow
Solution 1 - Testing	Shubham Chaudhary	View Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 2 - Testing	Benjamin Muschko	View Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 3 - Testing	adarshr	View Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 4 - Testing	stefanglase	View Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 5 - Testing	Langusten Gustel	View Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 6 - Testing	Darwin	View Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 7 - Testing	user3521637	View Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 8 - Testing	JJD	View Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 9 - Testing	Andrzej Rehmann	View Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 10 - Testing	radeklos	View Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 11 - Testing	Enrico	View Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 12 - Testing	Suleman	View Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 13 - Testing	odemolliens	View Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 14 - Testing	Luis	View Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 15 - Testing	Mr-IDE	View Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 16 - Testing	Abhijit Sarkar	View Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 17 - Testing	tonisives	View Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 18 - Testing	Cafer Mert Ceyhan	View Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 19 - Testing	BrunoJCM	View Answer on Stackoverflow