`baseUrl` flag in protractors schema is deprecated

[krotscheck]

🚀 Feature request

Please do not deprecate and remove the baseUrl flag in the protractor schema.

Command (mark with an x)

- [ ] new
- [ ] build
- [ ] serve
- [ ] test
- [ x ] e2e
- [ ] generate
- [ ] add
- [ ] update
- [ ] lint
- [ ] xi18n
- [ ] run
- [ ] config
- [ ] help
- [ ] version
- [ ] doc

Description

In our CI/CD system, we run our e2e tests as a part of our pre-merge validations, which include deploying the SPA configured to run against our staging API. In order to do this cleanly, and without namespace conflicts/races, we give each of these applications their own base-href, as follows:

ng build
    --configuration=staging
    --output-path=./dist-e2e
    --base-href=/ci-cd-draft-build-${JOB_NUMBER}/

This is then uploaded to S3, and tested as follows:

ng e2e --baseUrl=https://<s3-bucket>/ci-cd-draft-build-${JOB_NUMBER}/

We also use these draft builds to perform Beta feature usability tests, product demos, and a variety of other activities that are greatly enhanced by having a fully functioning UI. Similarly, we publish whitelabel UI's for our customers, which we also run protractor-driven acceptance tests against, and whose base-url's vary greatly.

Just now, I noticed this message:

Option "baseUrl" is deprecated: Use "baseUrl" in the Protractor config file instead.

Which I traced to the following entry in the protractor schematic.

    "baseUrl": {
      "type": "string",
      "description": "Base URL for protractor to connect to.",
      "x-deprecated": "Use \"baseUrl\" in the Protractor config file instead."
    }

As our buildUrl value is not known ahead of time, we cannot easily use the protractor config file; while we could attempt to inject it via some form of environment parameter, modifying environment parameters is more cumbersome than adding a commandline flag.

Describe the solution you'd like

We do not want this flag to be removed. It's not harming anyone, why is it being removed?

Describe alternatives you've considered

Writing a configuration file for CI/CD, for every customer, environment, and build target we have. This will litter our project with config files, and we'd really like to avoid that.

[krotscheck]

Seems like the new flavor of protractor builders supports the buildUrl flag. So I guess the current deprecation flag is... false?

[alan-agius4]

Hi @krotscheck, the deprecation of baseUrl is intentional. The main reason why this is being deprecated is due to additional code to maintain and the increase of the scope of the CLI.

The new builders have the baseUrl in place, because of our deprecation policy. Whatever is deprecated needs to stay around for 2 major versions, so consumers have enough time to adjust to the changes required.

I'll leave this issue open for the time being to see what is the feedback on the community and other team members about this.

[jkyoutsey]

We have the exact same issue and desire. We want our CI/CD to define the base-url rather than using different config files that only differ in this one setting.

[deankostomaj]

Same issue here. It seems unreasonable to have multiple configurations just because of one variable. Also, there is a problem with dynamic baseUrls which get generated during CI.

[DarthOpto]

so we did this to get around this insanity:

Protractor.config
const baseUrl = process.env.baseUrl ? process.env.baseUrl : 'default url';

package.json under scripts
e2e-qa: "baseUrl=http://qa.url ng e2e --suite"
add a script for each URL you want to run with.

Run them this way:
npm run e2e-qa -- testsuite

Hope this helps.

[kumaravnish]

Any resolution on this? We need the baseUrl feature as well, as our URLs are dynamic in the CI process.

[mkalam-alami]

The depreciation caused CI/CD problems for us as well during migration to Angular 8 (not only --baseUrl was deprecated but it actually did not work anymore, using cli 8.2.2 + protractor 5.4.0).

We switched to @DarthOpto's approach of custom environment variables set in the protractor.conf.js. While it would have been more comfortable to keep the flags, to be honest it is an acceptable alternative and barely more effort to set up.

Maybe the warning could just be updated to make that suggestion, something like:

Option "baseUrl" is deprecated: Use "baseUrl" in the Protractor config file instead,  
with the help of environment variables if needed.

[vikerman]

We decided not to deprecate this flag.