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 one of the specs2 runners.

Dependencies

When you use a build tool you generally only need to specify the main dependencies then any transitive dependency will be fetched for you. However, when you run specifications from the shell you need to specify the classpath yourself. The best way to do this is to use sbt to make sure your specification compiles with all the required dependencies, then export the project classpath:

sbt> export Runtime / fullClasspath
sbt> export Test / fullClasspath

With the output of both commands you can define an environment variable, $SPECS2_PATH

sh> export $SPECS2_PATH=<runtime classpath>:<test classpath>

From the shell

Run one specification

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

sh> java -cp $SPECS2_PATH specs2.run org.acme.MySpec xonly

And the other arguments are used to drive the execution of the specification as described in the Arguments section.

Run several specifications

The specs2.files object will 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

Specification arguments can be passed after those parameters

sh> java -cp $SPECS2_PATH specs2.files filesrunner.basepath examples xonly

Tip! use the filesrunner.verbose argument to make sure that you are looking for specifications in the right place

Tip! don’t forget to quote the filesrunner.path argument, since this is a glob and your shell might expand it too soon

sh> java -cp $SPECS2_PATH specs2.files filesrunner.path '**/examples/*Spec.scala'

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.

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> given Arguments = nocolor

scala> specs2.run(spec1)

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