Automatically detect runsettings specified in a build property

Description

The Testwindow in Visual Studio detects a runsettings file specified in the build property RunSettingsFilePath for a project (c#, f#, and c++), but vstest currently doesn’t mimic this functionality.

Steps to reproduce

1. add the following to the .csproj of a test project

<PropertyGroup>
    <RunSettingsFilePath>[path to a .runsettings file]</RunSettingsFilePath>
</PropertyGroup>

1. run the tests in the project using the cli

Expected behavior

run settings defined in the specified file should be used

Actual behavior

They are currently not applied

[vritant24]

@CodeChief thanks for your response.

The link to the documentation is https://aka.ms/vs-runsettings (https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/visualstudio/test/configure-unit-tests-by-using-a-dot-runsettings-file?branch=release-16.4&view=vs-2019#visual-studio-2019-version-164-and-later specifically) and walks through how to set up auto detection with either with a solution wide “.runsettings” file or one that is specified in the build properties of a project. Please let me know if anything there is unclear and can be improved…

Instead of using $(ProjectDir), we recommend using $(MSBuildProjectDirectory) (docs). I’ll update the documentation to point users to the recommended list of properties.

There is a task in the backlog to expose runsettings better in the VS UI, but it is currently lower in priority.

[ViktorHofer]

Closing this issue now. Let me know if someone has any concerns

Closing this issue is fine as it just covers the msbuild property but we should have another tracking issue to enable:

1. the auto-detection feature (a .runsettings file is searched in the test assembly’s folder)
2. hook into GetCopyToOutputDirectoryItems to add the $(RunSettingsFilePath) to the AllItemsFullPathWithTargetPath item.