Quick notes on using insta

Insta is a nice snapshot testing tool for Rust.

Snapshot testing

Snapshot tests are a more general extension of the normal tests we have in Rust.

Usually we use assert_eq! and similar macros. Insta let you deal with the reference values in a richer way and store them inside or outside your codebase.

Pitfalls to keep in mind

I spent way too much time stumbling upon a bunch of annoyances while converting some tests in rust-code-analysis so it is better to list them so you will avoid to suffer from similar mistakes:

• cargo insta is git-aware, make sure to pass --no-ignore if your snapshots directory is populated by different means even better if you can use git-submodules.
• If you deal with floating points, round them to the precision you care about. Different arches/libc may have different precisions
• If you save paths keep in mind that Windows is special in this regard and you may have to manually serialize it.

Nice things to keep in mind

• cargo test -- --nocapture provides enough information to see what went wrong.
• cargo insta test --review makes adding more tests and make sure you do not break anything by mistake.

That's all for today