Avoid guid at the end of outputDirectory

On Coverlet we have some users complain about the dynamic folder name generated for reports file. I did some check on code and seem that guid is “mandatory” and not removable.

https://github.com/microsoft/vstest/blob/master/src/Microsoft.TestPlatform.Common/DataCollection/DataCollectionAttachmentManager.cs#L101-L125

Could be useful add a parameter, maybe in runsetting like <DeterministicOutputdirectory>true/false</DeterministicOutputdirectory> and in that case avoid to concat guid.ToString().

Dynamic folder makes CI more complex.

Issues refs https://github.com/tonerdo/coverlet/issues/500 https://github.com/tonerdo/coverlet/issues/767

cc: @DaleyKD

[keegandent]

This is also not IDE friendly, as there is no deterministic way to find the most recent result folder. Coverage highlighting tools (VSCode Coverage Gutters, in my case) can’t be effectively configured to work with this behavior.

I am right there with you. I’m not sure what genius thought an artifact directory’s name should be non-deterministic, but it’s completely ludicrous to me. Nobody has, from my reading, presented a single good argument as to why you’d want a GUID for this. I could see the argument for a timestamp, but honestly, if somebody wants their artifacts in a GUID-named folder, make them do it themselves as its a lot easier to go deterministic->random than vice-versa. I’m not sure why those who want consistency are the ones being punished.

[ViktorHofer]

Just stumbled upon this.

I don’t know the reasons for the guid but I would rather avoid yet another option.

I disagree. VSTest should respect the specified ResultsDirectory and CoverageFileName for data collectors and not create intermediate directories between. I can do that for loggers already so I would argue DataCollectors to behave the same:

<RunSettings>
  <RunConfiguration>
     <!-- Directory for test run reports. E.g. trx, coverage etc. -->
    <ResultsDirectory>.\</ResultsDirectory>
  </RunConfiguration>
  <LoggerRunSettings>
    <Loggers>
      <Logger uri="logger://Microsoft/TestPlatform/TrxLogger/v1">
        <Configuration>
          <LogFileName>testResults.trx</LogFileName>
        </Configuration>
      </Logger>
      <Logger uri="logger://Microsoft/TestPlatform/HtmlLogger/v1">
        <Configuration>
          <LogFileName>testResults.html</LogFileName>
        </Configuration>
      </Logger>
    </Loggers>
  </LoggerRunSettings>

I would expect the following behavior:

• LogFileName inside a DataCollector configuration node is respected:

<DataCollectionRunSettings>
    <DataCollectors>
      <DataCollector friendlyName="XPlat code coverage">
        <Configuration>
          <CoverageFileName>coverage.xml</CoverageFileName>
        </Configuration>
      </DataCollector>
    </DataCollectors>
  </DataCollectionRunSettings>

• The specified ResultsDirectory is respected without any intermediate folders in it.

  <RunConfiguration>
     <!-- Directory for test run reports. E.g. trx, coverage etc. -->
    <ResultsDirectory>.\</ResultsDirectory>
  </RunConfiguration>

In this example you can even see that coverage is explicitly listed in the comment (which I took from the docs). Specifying the log file name seems to have worked in the past with the pre-coverlet code coverage collector: https://github.com/microsoft/vstest/issues/1957.