hey @joselitofilho - i appreciate the behavior is a bit confusing, but --focus (like go test -run) is actually designed to accept a regular expression. By quoting the metacharacters it becomes no longer possible for users to pass a meaningful regexp to --focus.

I got it @onsi.
I wonder if we could add another flag to accept regex. For example --focusx, --focux or --regex-focus. Something like that. Maybe help the newest users and give us more flexibility.

What do you think?

My plan here - with v2 over the next couple of months - is to introduce labels. So users can annotate tests with labels and more explicitly control which tests they focus.

I assume your usecase has to do with the viscose plugin? For now I'd say you should escape the string in the plug-in. What i'm hoping to do in v2 is offer better support for programmatic interaction with ginkgo. Two ideas:

1. ability to tell ginkgo to focus on a given source file + line number.

2. ability for ginkgo to emit a json formatted report

thoughts on those two ideas?

My plan here - with v2 over the next couple of months - is to introduce labels. So users can annotate tests with labels and more explicitly control which tests they focus.

That sounds good. 🤓

I assume your usecase has to do with the viscose plugin?

Yes, it is. For now, I will recommend not using the metacharacters in the name of cases.

thoughts on those two ideas?

I appreciate that two ideas. Helps so much. Especially the second.

2. ability for ginkgo to emit a json formatted report

Thanks, @onsi. I will close the PR. (or you, if you'd like to close it.)

Let me know if you'd like me to help you.

@onsi

One more thing. I think the ginkgo --focus behavior should not have the same behavior of go test -run in relation to regex. They are slightly different. I mean, the go test -run will apply the regex in the name of the test methods, the ginkgo --focus will apply regex in the text of the BDD cases.

It's just a question to think about. 😃