Run in shell

It is not necessary to use a build tool to run a specification. You just need to have the right dependencies on the classpath and use of of specs2 “runners”.

Dependencies

When you use a build tool you generally only need to specify the main dependencies then the transitive dependencies will be fetched for you. In addition to the scala jars and specs2 jars you might need the following jars (in sbt notation):

Dependency Comment
"org.scalaz" %% "scalaz-core" % "7.2.30" if using specs2-scalaz
"org.scalaz" %% "scalaz-concurrent" % "7.2.30" if using specs2-scalaz
"com.chuusai" %% "shapeless" % "2.3.3" if you use the GWT trait or case class diffs
"org.scalacheck" %% "scalacheck" % "1.14.0" if using ScalaCheck
"org.mockito" % "mockito-core" % "3.3.3" if using Mockito. Note: specs2.jar must be placed before mockito.jar on the classpath
"org.hamcrest" % "hamcrest-core" % "2.2" if using Hamcrest matchers with Mockito
"junit" % "junit" % "4.13" if using JUnit
"org.specs2" % "classycle" % "1.4.1" if using the org.specs2.specification.Analysis trait
"org.scala-lang" % "scala-reflect" % scalaVersion.value if using interpolated specifications and/or macro matchers
Resolvers Comment
Resolver.sonatypeRepo("releases") for other Scala libraries

From the shell

The specs2.run object can be used to run a specification from the shell. The first argument is expected to be the class name:

home> java -cp ... specs2.run org.acme.MySpec xonly

From the scala console

The specs2.run object also has an apply method to execute specifications from the Scala console:

scala> specs2.run(spec1, spec2)

If you want to pass specific arguments you can import the specs2.arguments object member functions:

scala> import specs2.arguments._
scala> specs2.run(spec1)(nocolor)

Or you can set implicit arguments which will be used for any specification execution:

scala> import specs2.arguments._
scala> implicit val myargs = nocolor

scala> specs2.run(spec1)

Files Runner

The specs2.files object will, by default, select and execute all Specifications found in the test source directory according to the following parameters:

Name Default value Description
filesrunner.basepath src/test/scala source directory for test files
filesrunner.path **/*.scala glob pattern for the file paths
filesrunner.pattern (.*Spec)\s*extends\s*.* regular expression capturing the specification class/object name
filesrunner.verbose false logs of searched paths and potential classes to instantiate

Outputs

By default the specs2.run and specs2.files runners will output their results to the console but you can also use other printers as described in the Runners section.