Accessing aliases in Cypress with "this" - cypress

Question

I'm trying to share values between my before and beforeEach hooks using aliases. It currently works if my value is a string but when the value is an object, the alias is only defined in the first test, every test after that this.user is undefined in my beforeEach hook. How can I share a value which is an object between tests?
This is my code:
before(function() {
const email = `test+${uuidv4()}#example.com`;
cy
.register(email)
.its("body.data.user")
.as("user");
});
beforeEach(function() {
console.log("this.user", this.user); // This is undefined in every test except the first
});

Answer 1

The alias is undefined in every test except the first because aliases are cleared down after each test.
Aliased variables are accessed via cy.get('#user') syntax. Some commands are inherently asynchronous, so using a wrapper to access the variable ensures it is resolved before being used.
See documentation Variables and Aliases and get.
There does not seem to be a way to explicitly preserve an alias, as the is with cookies
Cypress.Cookies.preserveOnce(names...)
but this recipe for preserving fixtures shows a way to preserve global variables by reinstating them in a beforeEach()
let city
let country
before(() => {
// load fixtures just once, need to store in
// closure variables because Mocha context is cleared
// before each test
cy.fixture('city').then((c) => {
city = c
})
cy.fixture('country').then((c) => {
country = c
})
})
beforeEach(() => {
// we can put data back into the empty Mocha context before each test
// by the time this callback executes, "before" hook has finished
cy.wrap(city).as('city')
cy.wrap(country).as('country')
})
If you want to access a global user value, you might try something like
let user;
before(function() {
const email = `test+${uuidv4()}#example.com`;
cy
.register(email)
.its("body.data.user")
.then(result => user = result);
});
beforeEach(function() {
console.log("global user", user);
cy.wrap(user).as('user'); // set as alias
});
it('first', () => {
cy.get('#user').then(val => {
console.log('first', val) // user alias is valid
})
})
it('second', () => {
cy.get('#user').then(val => {
console.log('second', val) // user alias is valid
})
})

Answer 2

Replace
console.log("global user", this.user);
with
cy.log(this.user);
and it should work as expected.
The reason for this is the asynchronous nature of cypress commands. Think of it as a two-step process: All the cypress commands are not doing what you think, when they run. They just build up a chain of commands. This chain is executed as the test later on.
This is obviously not the case for other commands like console.log(). This command is executed when preparing the test.
This is explained in great detail in the cypress documentation:
But I felt it very hard to get my head around this. You have to get used to it.
One rule of thumb: Almost every command in your test should be a cypress command.
So just use cy.log instead of console.log
If you must use console.log you can do it like this:
cy.visit("/).then(() => console.log(this.user))
this way the console.log is chained. Or if you do not have a subject to chain off, build your own custom command like this:
Cypress.Commands.add("console", (message) => console.log(message))
cy.console(this.user)
Another mistake with using this in cypress is using arrow functions. If you do, you don't have access to the this you are expecting. See Avoiding the use of this in the cypress docs.

Answer 3

TL;DR: If you want an aliased user object available in each of your tests, you must define it in a beforeEach hook not a before hook.
Cypress performs a lot of cleanup between tests and this includes clearing all aliases. According to the Sharing Contexts section of Variables and Aliases: "Aliases and properties are automatically cleaned up after each test." The result you are seeing (your alias is cleaned after the first test and subsequently undefined) is thus expected behavior.
I cannot determine what register does in the original post, but it seems your intention is to save the overhead of performing API calls repeatedly in a beforeEach hook. It is definitely easiest to put everything you want in the beforeEach hook and ignore the overhead (also, pure API calls with no UI interaction will not incur much penalty).
If you really need to avoid repetition, this should not be accomplished through regular variables due to potential timing problems with Cypress' custom chainables. This is an anti-pattern they publish. The best way to do this would be:
Create a fixture file with static user data that you will use to conduct the test. (Remove the uuidv4.)
For the set of tests that need your user data, call register in a before hook using the fixture data. This will create the data in the system under test.
Use a beforeEach hook to load the fixture data and alias it for each of your tests. Now, the static data you need is accessible with no API calls and it is guaranteed to be in the system properly thanks to the before hook.
Run your tests using the alias.
Clean up the data in an after hook (since your user no longer has a random email, you need to add this step).
If you need to do the above for the whole test suite, put your before and after hooks in the support file to make them global.