Counter in section title, table of contents increases it

Question

I'm trying to add a counter to subsection titles. For example:

1. Design tests

   1.1 Test 1. A test

   1.2 Test 2. Another test

2. Functional tests

   2.1 Test 3. Yet another test

The problem is, since the counter is also increased in the table of contents, table of contents will show:

1.1 Test 1. A test (and the other two tests will be 2 and 3)

but then the section in the document will be:

1.1 Test 4. A test (and the other two tests will be 5 and 6)

How could I skip the table of contents from using the counter?

Here is a sample code:

\documentclass{article}

\newcounter{test}
\DeclareRobustCommand{\newtest}[1]{
\refstepcounter{test} \label{test:#1} 
Test \thetest #1
}

\begin{document}
   \title{Test example}

   \maketitle

   \clearpage

   \tableofcontents

   \clearpage

    \section{Design tests}
      \subsection{\newtest{A test}}
      \subsection{\newtest{Another test}}
    \section{Functional tests}
      \subsection{\newtest{Yet another test}}
\end{document}

Answer 1

This approach prevents the \refstepcounter code if it's not executed in the \tableofcontents, by using a conditional named \ifnotintoc, being set to false at the beginning of the \tableofcontents.

This prevents the generation of the same label again (unless \newtest is used again after resetting of the test counter!)

In the ToC stage, the already written label is extracted with \getrefnumber (requires refcount package). (A \ref usage would work too, but there would be a hyperlink then, if hyperref is used in addition).

Be sure to say \notintoctrue after \tableofcontents!

\documentclass{article}


\usepackage{refcount}
\usepackage[bookmarksopen,bookmarksopenlevel=3]{hyperref}

\newcounter{test}

\makeatletter

\newif\ifnotintoc

\DeclareRobustCommand{\newtest}[1]{%
  \ifnotintoc
  \refstepcounter{test}\label{test:#1}% 
  Test \thetest\ #1%
  \else
  Test \getrefnumber{test:#1}\ #1%
  \fi
}

\g@addto@macro{\tableofcontents}{\addtocontents{toc}{\protect\global\protect\notintocfalse}}
\makeatother



\begin{document}

   \title{Test example}

   \maketitle

   \clearpage

   \tableofcontents
   \notintoctrue
   \clearpage

   \section{Design tests}
   \subsection{\newtest{A test}}
   \subsection{\newtest{Another test}}
   \section{Functional tests}
   \subsection{\newtest{Yet another test}}
 \end{document}

Answer 2

This can be achieved by resetting counter next to Table of Contents:

   \tableofcontents
   \setcounter{test}{0}