server-communication__visit-2nd-domain

visit-2nd-domain

Visiting two different domains from two different tests

THE WRONG WAY

Imagine a spec that visits two different domains:

// 🚨 INCORRECT TEST FOR DEMO ONLY
describe('Two domains', () => {
  let myValue

  it('visits 1nd domain', () => {
    cy.visit('https://www.cypress.io/')
      .then(() => {
        // get the value X from the page
        myValue = X
      })
  })

  it('visits 2nd domain', () => {
    cy.visit('https://github.com')
      .then(() => {
        // use myValue
      })
  })
})

If you run the above spec you might notice a curious thing: the myValue is undefined in the second test, even if it was set correctly in the first test. The variable is set to null because Cypress has to reload the entire spec when visiting the second domain. This "restarts" the spec, losing all local closure variables.

The solution is to save the myValue not in a local variable, but in a more permanent location, unaffected by the spec restart. This recipe shows two such places: a file on disk and a variable in the setupNodeEvents function.

using task

The tests in using-task-spec.cy.js store the intermediate URL in the setupNodeEvents process.

The first test visits the first domain https://www.cypress.io/, finds link to Cypress Test Runner's GitHub repo and saves the href in the setupNodeEvents process by using cy.task. The setupNodeEvents process keeps running preserving the variables, while the specs are started and stopped.

The second test gets the URL from the setupNodeEvents process using cy.task and calls cy.visit(<URL>) and then confirms the GitHub page opens.

using file

The tests in using-file-spec.cy.js save the extracted URL in a local JSON file.

See also

• recipe "Pass value between specs"