Introduction

An output is where the results of a run end up — files in any of five formats, tables in a database, or a procedure called for every result; as many of them as the project asks for. Each carries the result of every test together with the definition that produced it.

Without an Output setting a run leaves no record beyond the console and the log. With one, every test is written where the setting says — its result, message and timing, and the whole test definition (suite, name, description, data sources, queries, expectation, …), so an output can be read without the project file:

Output: xlsx, json

That line puts an Excel file and a JSON file into TestResults/ next to the project file after every run. The Output key is a root setting of the project file; Settings has the long form — file names, paths, databases, several outputs at once.

Files and databases #

A file output holds the whole run; a database output has the rows of the tests that have finished even when the run is killed halfway. The two kinds combine freely, and a project may define any number of outputs. Every tool writes them — CAT Studio, CAT CLI, the PowerShell module, the Python module — and every command-line tool has a switch to skip them for one run (catcli run -n, Invoke-CatProject -SkipOutputs, invoke_project(skip_outputs=True)).

Plans #

The Starter and Professional plans write results to MS Excel only. A project on those plans that asks for any other format, or for a database, is refused when it is opened; the message names the plan and says what the Team plan adds. See Compare plans.

Related #

• Overview — every format on one table, and the sample run the format pages share.
• Settings — the Output key in full.
• Properties — every field a result carries into an output.