Skipping XUnit tests based on runtime conditions

Have you ever needed to skip a test under a certain condition? Say, the presence or absence of an environmental variable, or some conditional runtime check? No, me neither - that was up until recently.

Skipping tests is usually a good practice to get into, but I use the word “usually” here because as with all things in software there sometimes certain constraints or parameters that may well justify doing so. In my case I needed to skip a certain test if I was running on AppVeyor in Linux.

Having done a bit of digging I found two options that would work:

Option 1 - Using the #if preprocessor directive

Depending on your scenario it might be possible to simple use an #if preprocessor directive to include the test. If you’re wishing to exclude a test based on the operating system the test were running on then this may be a solution.

My scenario also involved checking the presence of environmental variables, which I’d rather do through code. This led me to the next approach which I felt was more suitable.

Preferred Option - Leveraging existing XUnit functionality

XUnit already has the ability to skip a test by providing a reason for skipping the test in question via the Skip property that exists within the Fact attribute:

So all we have to do is extend the FactAttribute class and set that property:

Now instead of using the traditional [Fact] attribute, we can use our new IgnoreOnAppVeyorLinuxFact attribute: