Store a variable in Intern funcational test

Question

How can you store a value from one element in an Intern functional test that can be used to find additional elements?

For example, I have the following test snippet:

var mainItem = "Menu 1";
var subItem = "Sub Menu 1";
var mainItemId = "";
                return this.remote
                .elementByXPath("//*[contains(text(),'" + mainItem + "')]/ancestor::*[@dojoattachpoint='focusNode']")
                    .getAttribute("id")
                    .then(function(id){ mainItemId = id; })
                    .clickElement()
                    .end()
                .wait(500)
                .then(function(){ console.log(mainItemId); })
                .elementByXPath("//*[contains(text(),'" + subItem + "')][ancestor::*[@dijitpopupparent='" + mainItemId + "']]")
                    .clickElement()
                    .end()

Basically, when I run the test, the mainItemId value will log correctly, but the second elementByXPath will not be found. If I initialize mainItemId with the same value, the xpath works. Based on what I'm seeing, its as if mainItemId will store the value only within the .then() context.

Thanks.

Answer 1

All of the remote methods are non-blocking, and execute immediately when the test function is invoked. mainItemId is not set until after the 4th command is executed. If you need to perform a query that is conditional upon data retrieved from an earlier command, you need to do that within a callback:

var mainItem = "Menu 1";
var subItem = "Sub Menu 1";
var mainItemId = "";
var remote = this.remote;
return remote
    .elementByXPath("//*[contains(text(),'" + mainItem + "')]/ancestor::*[@dojoattachpoint='focusNode']")
        .getAttribute("id")
        .then(function(id){ mainItemId = id; })
        .clickElement()
        .end()
    .wait(500)
    .then(function(){
        return remote.elementByXPath("//*[contains(text(),'" + subItem + "')][ancestor::*[@dijitpopupparent='" + mainItemId + "']]")
            .clickElement()
            .end()
    });