I am reading some tutorials on promise tests in mocha. There is a piece of codes:
before(function(done) {
return Promise.resolve(save(article)).then(function() {
done();
});
});
Why done() called in the then() in the before()? What is the difference between the above codes and the following codes:
before(function(done) {
return Promise.resolve(save(article));
});
Thanks
UPDATE
My question is to compare with the following codes:
before(function() {
return Promise.resolve(save(article));
});
Sorry for the typo.
The first code snippet with the before hook returns a promise and calls done. In Mocha 3.x and over, it will result in this error:
Error: Resolution method is overspecified. Specify a callback *or* return a Promise; not both.
It used to be that it did not particularly matter if you used done and returned a promise, but eventually the Mocha devs figured that specifying both done and returning a promise just meant the test designer made a mistake and it was better to have Mocha pitch a fit rather than silently allow it.
In your 2nd snippet, you have the done argument and return a promise but Mocha will still wait for done to be called and will timeout. (It really should detect the argument and raise an error like in the 1st case, but it doesn't...)
Generally, if you are testing an asynchronous operation that produces a promise, it is simpler to return the promise than use done. Here's an example illustrating the problem:
const assert = require("assert");
// This will result in a test timeout rather than give a nice error
// message.
it("something not tested properly", (done) => {
Promise.resolve(1).then((x) => {
assert.equal(x, 2);
done();
});
});
// Same test as before, but fixed to give you a good error message
// about expecting a value of 2. But look at the code you have to
// write to get Mocha to give you a nice error message.
it("something tested properly", (done) => {
Promise.resolve(1).then((x) => {
assert.equal(x, 2);
done();
}).catch(done);
});
// If you just return the promise, you can avoid having to pepper your
// code with catch closes and calls to done.
it("something tested properly but much simpler", () => {
return Promise.resolve(1).then((x) => {
assert.equal(x, 2);
});
});
With regards to the completion of asynchronous operations, it works the same whether you are using it, before, beforeEach, after or afterEach so even though the example I gave is with it, the same applies to all the hooks.
I am not sure if I understood 100% the question, but the tests will not start until done is called.
beforeEach(function(done) {
setTimeout(function() {
value = 0;
done();
}, 1);
});
This test will not start until the done function is called in the call to beforeEach above. And this spec will not complete until its done is called.
it("should support async execution of test preparation and expectations", function(done) {
value++;
expect(value).toBeGreaterThan(0);
done();
});
You don't have to pass done in your example, just:
before(function() {
return Promise.resolve(save(article));
});
If you do pass done the test runner will expect to be called before continue, otherwise it will probably throw a timeout error.
In this particular case there is no functional difference. The callback, often called done, was introduced to handle asynchronous tests when using callbacks. Returning a Promise is sufficient, but note that you cannot define the done callback, because the test suite will wait until it's called. Use done when you can't easily return a Promise. In your case the second test will be infinite, because you define done, which you never actually call.
Related
I've written a lot of asynchronous unit tests lately, using a combination of Angular's fakeAsync, returning Promises from async test body functions, the Jasmine done callback, etc. Generally I've been able to make everything work in a totally deterministic way.
A few parts of my code interact in deeply-tangled ways with 3rd party libraries that are very complex and difficult to mock out. I can't figure out a way to hook an event or generate a Promise that's guaranteed to resolve after this library is finished doing background work, so at the moment my test is stuck using setTimeout:
class MyService {
public async init() {
// Assume library interaction is a lot more complicated to replace with a mock than this would be
this.libraryObject.onError.addEventListener(err => {
this.bannerService.open("Load failed!" + err);
});
// Makes some network calls, etc, that I have no control over
this.libraryObject.loadData();
}
}
it("shows a banner on network error", async done => {
setupLibraryForFailure();
await instance.init();
setTimeout(() => {
expect(banner.open).toHaveBeenCalled();
done();
}, 500); // 500ms is generally enough... on my machine, probably
});
This makes me nervous, especially the magic number in the setTimeout. It also scales poorly, as I'm sure 500ms is far longer than any of my other tests take to complete.
What I think I'd like to do, is be able to tell Jasmine to poll the banner.open spy until it's called, or until the test timeout elapses and the test fails. Then, the test should notice as soon as the error handler is triggered and complete. Is there a better approach, or is this a good idea? Is it a built-in pattern somewhere that I'm not seeing?
I think you can take advantage of callFake, basically calling another function once this function is called.
Something like this:
it("shows a banner on network error", async done => {
setupLibraryForFailure();
// maybe you have already spied on banner open so you have to assign the previous
// spy to a variable and use that variable for the callFake
spyOn(banner, 'open').and.callFake((arg: string) => {
expect(banner.open).toHaveBeenCalled(); // maybe not needed because we are already doing callFake
done(); // call done to let Jasmine know you're done
});
await instance.init();
});
We are setting a spy on banner.open and when it is called, it will call the callback function using the callFake and we call done inside of this callback letting Jasmine know we are done with our assertions.
I'm new to cypress and am trying to figure out how things work.
I have my own function (which calls a test controller server to reset the database). It returns a promise which completes when the DB have been successfully resetted.
function resetDatabase(){
// returns a promise for my REST api call.
}
My goal is to be able to execute it before all tests.
describe('Account test suite', function () {
// how can I call resetDb here and wait for the result
// before the tests below are invoked?
it('can log in', function () {
cy.visit(Cypress.config().testServerUrl + '/Account/Login/')
cy.get('[name="UserName"]').type("admin");
cy.get('[name="Password"]').type("123456");
cy.get('#login-button').click();
});
// .. and more test
})
How can I do that in cypress?
Update
I've tried
before(() => {
return resetDb(Cypress.config().apiServerUrl);
});
But then I get an warning saying:
Cypress detected that you returned a promise in a test, but also invoked one or more cy commands inside of that promise
I'm not invoking cy in resetDb().
Cypress have promises (Cypress.Promise), but they are not real promises, more like duck typing. In fact, Cypress isn't 100% compatible with real promises, they might, or might not, work.
Think of Cypress.Promise as a Task or an Action. They are executed sequentially with all other cypress commands.
To get your function into the Cypress pipeline you can use custom commands. The documentation doesn't state it, but you can return a Cypress.Promise from them.
Cypress.Commands.add('resetDb', function () {
var apiServerUrl = Cypress.config().apiServerUrl;
return new Cypress.Promise((resolve, reject) => {
httpRequest('PUT', apiServerUrl + "/api/test/reset/")
.then(function (data) {
resolve();
})
.catch(function (err) {
reject(err);
});
});
});
That command can then be executed from the test itself, or as in my case from before().
describe('Account', function () {
before(() => {
cy.resetDb();
});
it('can login', function () {
// test code
});
})
You can use cy.wrap( promise ), although there might still be a bug where it never times out (haven't tested).
Otherwise, you can use cy.then() (which is undocumented, can break in the future, and I'm def not doing any favors by promoting internal APIs):
cy.then(() => {
return myAsyncFunction();
});
You can use both of these commands at the top-level of spec like you'd use any command and it'll be enqueued into cypress command queue and executed in order.
But unlike cy.wrap (IIRC), cy.then() supports passing a callback, which means you can execute your async function at the time of the cy command being executed, not at the start of the spec (because expressions passed to cy commands evaluate immediately) --- that's what I'm doing in the example above.
I want to get the result of promise in before
describe('unsubscribe', function() {
var arn;
this.timeout(10000);
before(function(done) {
sns.subscribe('param1', 'param2').then(
(result) => {
arn = result;
done();
},
(error) => {
assert.fail(error);
done();
});
});
it('("param") => promise returns object', function() {
const result = sns.unsubscribe(arn);
expect(result).to.eventually.be.an('object');
});
});
Similarly, in after I want to get result of promise in test
describe('subscribe', function() {
var arn;
this.timeout(10000);
it('("param1","param2") => promise returns string', function(done) {
sns.subscribe('param1', 'param2').then(
(result) => {
arn = result;
expect(result).to.be.a('string');
},
(error) => {
assert.fail(error);
done();
});
});
after(function(done) {
sns.unsubscribe(arn).then(
(result) => done());
});
});
Is this code properly written? Is there any better practice? What is the recommended way to do so?
Every place you want to have Mocha wait for a promise to be resolved you should just return the promise rather than use done. So your before hook can be simplified to:
before(() => sns.subscribe('param1', 'param2')
.then((result) => arn = result));
This is much more readable than having done here and there and having to do anything special for error conditions. If there is an error, the promise will reject and Mocha will catch it and report an error. There's no need to perform your own assertions.
You have a test and an after hook that could also be simplified by just returning the promises they use rather than using done. And if you test depends on a promise, remember to return it. You've forgotten it in one of your tests:
it('("param") => promise returns object', function() {
const result = sns.unsubscribe(arn);
// You need the return on this next line:
return expect(result).to.eventually.be.an('object');
});
Tip: if you have a test suite in which all tests are asynchronous, you can use the --async-only option. It will make Mocha require all tests to call done or return a promise and can help catch cases where you forget to return a promise. (Otherwise, such cases are hard to if they don't raise any error.)
Defining a variable in the callback to describe and setting it in one of the before/beforeEach hooks and checking it in the after/afterEach hooks is the standard way to pass data between hooks and tests. Mocha does not offer a special facility for it. So, yes, if you need to pass data which is the result of a promise you need to perform an assignment in .then like you do. You may run into examples where people instead of using a variable defined in the describe callback will set fields on this. Oh, this works but IMO it is brittle. A super simple example: if you set this.timeout to record some number meaningful only to your test, then you've overwritten the function that Mocha provides for changing its timeouts. You could use another name that does not clash now but will clash when a new version of Mocha is released.
I am trying to understand how the asynchronous code for Mocha (at http://mochajs.org/#getting-started) works.
describe('User', function() {
describe('#save()', function() {
it('should save without error', function(done) {
var user = new User('Luna');
user.save(function(err) {
if (err) throw err;
done();
});
});
});
});
I want to know how Mocha decides whether a test has succeeded or failed behind the scenes.
I can understand from the above code that user.save() being asynchronous would return immediately. So Mocha would not decide if the test has succeeded or failed after it executes it(). When user.save() ends up calling done() successfully, that's when Mocha would consider it to be a successful test.
I cannot understand how it Mocha would ever come to know about a test failure in the above case. Say, user.save() calls its callback with the err argument set, then the callback throws an error. None of Mocha's function was called in this case. Then how would Mocha know that an error occurred in the callback?
Mocha is able to detect failures that prevent calling the callback or returning a promise because it uses process.on('uncaughtException', ...); to detect exceptions which are not caught. Since it runs all tests serially, it always knows to which test an uncaught exception belongs. (Sometimes people are confused by this: telling Mocha a test is asynchronous does not mean Mocha will run it in parallel with other tests. It just tells Mocha it should wait for a callback or a promise.)
Unless there is something that intervenes to swallow exceptions, Mocha will know that the test failed and will report the error as soon as it detects it. Here is an illustration. The first test fails due to a generic exception thrown. The 2nd one fails due to an expect check that failed. It also raises an unhandled exception.
var chai = require("chai");
var expect = chai.expect;
it("failing test", function (done) {
setTimeout(function () {
throw new Error("pow!");
done();
}, 1000);
});
it("failing expect", function (done) {
setTimeout(function () {
expect(1).to.equal(2);
done();
}, 1000);
});
This is the output on my console:
1) failing test
2) failing expect
0 passing (2s)
2 failing
1) failing test:
Uncaught Error: pow!
at null._onTimeout (test.js:6:15)
2) failing expect:
Uncaught AssertionError: expected 1 to equal 2
+ expected - actual
-1
+2
at null._onTimeout (test.js:13:22)
The stack traces point to the correct code lines. If the exceptions happened deeper, the stack would be fuller.
When Mocha cannot report what went wrong exactly, that's usually because there is intervening code that swallows the exception that was raised. Or when you use promises the problem may be that someone forgot to call a method that indicates whether the promise is supposed to be completely processed and unhandled exceptions should be thrown. (How you do this depends on the promise implementation you use.)
It won't, it's a shame. It has no way to know that your callback is executing. It's an easier way to do asynchronous testing, where you just tell the test when you are finished. The downside, as you have noticed, is that errors in asynchronous callbacks won't be detected. Nevermind, Mocha hooks to process.on('uncaughtException',...) as mentioned by Louis. Note that if you use done instead of waitsFor and runs in jasmine, then you will have the problem.
Other frameworks like js-test-driver force to you wrap callbacks so the the testing framework can put a try catch around your callbacks (and you don't need to call done). Your test would look like the following:
var AsynchronousTest = AsyncTestCase('User');
AsynchronousTest.prototype.testSave = function(queue) {
queue.call('Saving user', function(callbacks) {
var user = new User('Luna');
user.save(callbacks.add(function(err) {
if (err) throw err;
// Run some asserts
}));
});
};
How do asynchronous tests work in Intern testing framework? I have tried to get them run exactly as in the example, but the async test passes immediately without waiting for the callback to be run.
it('should connect in 5 seconds', function () {
var dfd = this.async(5000);
conn.connect(credentials, dfd.callback(function(result) {
expect(result).to.... something
}));
}
The test passes immediately. What am I doing wrong?
dfd.callback doesn’t execute anything until it itself is executed. Keep in mind that it is designed for promise callbacks (i.e. the function passed to promise.then), not Node.js-style callbacks where the argument might be an error (i.e. function (error, result) {}). It will not check to see if an error is passed as an argument.
Without knowing what conn is, but seeing how you are passing dfd.callback as an argument to something that is not a promise, my suspicion is you are trying to use a Node.js-style callback and the call is erroring immediately. We may provide a convenience wrapper for these types of callbacks in the future to convert them to a promise interface, but until then, you probably just need to do something like this:
it('should connect in 5 seconds', function () {
var dfd = this.async(5000);
conn.connect(credentials, dfd.callback(function(error, result) {
if (error) {
throw error;
}
expect(result).to.... something
}));
});
Otherwise, without knowing what conn is and seeing what your actual assertion is, it’s too hard to say what the issue is here. So long as nothing inside the callback throws an error, the test will be considered successful.
Edit: So based on your comments above it sounds like your callback is an event listener called multiple times with different information. In this case, what you could do is something like this:
it('should connect in 5 seconds', function () {
var dfd = this.async(5000);
conn.connect(credentials, dfd.rejectOnError(function (result) {
if (result !== 'what I want') {
return;
}
expect(result).to.... something
// all other tests…
// nothing threw an error, so it is a successful test
dfd.resolve();
}));
});
dfd.rejectOnError works just like dfd.callback except it does not automatically resolve the promise; you do that yourself at the end.
Your structure is okay. dfd sets a timeout of 5 seconds for the test to succeed, then immediately tries conn.connect(), which is not part of the intern framework. If you are trying a simple XHR request, try the getUrlCallback function instead.
They have a pretty cool list of tests at this url: https://github.com/theintern/intern/wiki/Writing-Tests . Look for the two async examples.