@appium/support

> Utility functions used to support Appium drivers and plugins


Usage in drivers and plugins

Drivers and plugins are recommended to have Appium as a peer dependency, as it already includes
these utility functions. Add the following line to peerDependencies section of your module's
package.json:

``js
"peerDependencies": {
"appium": "^"
}
`

Afterwards import it in your code similarly to the below example:

`js
import {timing, util} from 'appium/support';
`

Usage in helper modules

If you want to use this module in a helper library, which is not a driver or a plugin,
then add the following line to dependencies section of your module's package.json:

`js
"dependencies": {
"@appium/support": ""
}
`

Afterwards import it in your code similarly to the below example:

`js
import {timing, util} from '@appium/support';
`

Categories

All utility functions are split into a bunch of different categories. Each category has its own file under the lib folder. All utility functions in these files are documented.

|Category|Description|
|-|-|
|console|Wrappers for the command line interface abstraction used by the Appium server|
|doctor|Common doctor utilities that can be used by drivers and plugins|
|env|Several helpers needed by the server to cope with internal dependencies and manifests|
|fs|Most of the functions here are just thin wrappers over utility functions available in Promises API|
|image-util|Utilities to work with images. Use sharp under the hood.
:bangbang: Node >=18.17 is required to use these utilities|
|logging|See the logging section below|
|mjpeg|Helpers needed to implement MJPEG streaming|
|net|Helpers needed for network interactions, for example, upload and download of files|
|node|Set of Node.js-specific utility functions needed, for example, to ensure objects immutability or to calculate their sizes|
|npm|Set of npm-related helpers|
|plist|Set of utilities used to read and write data from plist files in javascript|
|process|Helpers for interactions with system processes. These APIs don't support Windows.|
|system|Set of helper functions needed to determine properties of the current operating system|
|tempdir|Set of helpers that allow interactions with temporary folders|
|timing|Helpers that allow to measure execution time|
|util|Miscellaneous utilities|
|zip|Helpers that allow to work with archives in .zip format|

logging

This is a basic logger defaulting to npmlog with special
consideration for running tests (doesn't output logs when run with _TESTING=1).

$3

There are a number of levels, exposed as methods on the log object, at which logging can be made.
The built-in ones correspond to those of npmlog,
and are: silly, verbose, info, http, warn, and error. There is also a debug level.

The default threshold level is verbose.

The logged output, by default, will be level prefix message. So

`js
import {logging} from 'appium/support';
let log = logging.getLogger('mymodule');
log.warn('a warning');
``

Will produce

`shell
warn mymodule a warning
`

$3

There are two environment variable flags that affect the way logger works.

|Variable|Description|
|-|-|
|_TESTING|If set to 1, logging output is stopped|
|_FORCE_LOGS|If set to 1, overrides the value of _TESTING|

$3

log.level

- Get and set the threshold level at which to display the logs. Any logs at or above this level will
be displayed. The special level silent will prevent anything from being displayed ever. See
npmlog#level for more details.

loglevel

- Logs message at the specified level
`js
import {logging} from 'appium/support';
let log = logging.getLogger('mymodule');

log.info('hi!');
// => info mymodule hi!
`

log.unwrap()

- Retrieves the underlying npmlog object, in order to manage how
logging is done at a low level (e.g., changing output streams, retrieving an array of messages,
adding log levels, etc.).

`js
import {logging} from 'appium/support';
let log = logging.getLogger('mymodule');

log.info('hi!');

let npmlogger = log.unwrap();

// any npmlog methods
let logs = npmlogger.record;
// logs === [ { id: 0, level: 'info', prefix: 'mymodule', message: 'hi!', messageRaw: [ 'hi!' ] }]
`

log.errorWithException(error)

- Logs the error passed in, at error level, and then returns the error. If the error passed in is
not an instance of Error (either directly,
or a subclass of Error), it will be wrapped in a generic Error object.

`js
import {logging} from 'appium/support';
let log = logging.getLogger('mymodule');

// previously there would be two lines
log.error('This is an error');
throw new Error('This is an error');

// now is compacted
throw log.errorWithException('This is an error');
``

License

Apache-2.0