Navigating the quandary of mocking with Jasmine in Karma while unit testing AngularJS

Question

Navigating the quandary of mocking with Jasmine in Karma while unit testing AngularJS

I am currently in the process of writing tests for certain services using karma and jasmine. I have a question regarding whether or not I need to mock a service's dependency that utilizes $http.

PS: I am already utilizing $httpBackend to mock any GET request, and I intend on utilizing $httpBackend.expect* if I choose not to mock the ApiProvider service.

The service I am testing is as follows:

.factory('CRUDService', ['ApiProvider', function (ApiProvider) {
    'use strict';

    var CRUD = function CRUD(modelName) {
        this.getModelName = function () {
            return modelName;
        };
    },
        overridableMethods = {
            save: null
        };

    // More code...
}]);

This is the service's dependent service `ApiProvider`:

.service('ApiProvider', function ($http) {

    // Code for ApiProvider service...

});

And here is how I have conducted tests on the CRUDService so far:

describe('CRUDServiceTest', function () {
    'use strict';

    // Test cases for CRUDService...

});

TLDR;

To mock or not to mock a service that depends on $http?

javascript angularjs unit-testing mocking jasmine

Answer 1

Answer №1

It's always a smart move to mock out your services. By consistently doing so, it becomes much simpler to pinpoint the behavior of any newly added service.

Of course, there is no obligation to do this; you can opt to use Jasmine spies instead.

For example, if you were testing a CRUDService with a method like this:

remove: function () {
    return ApiProvider.delete(this.getModelName(), this.id);
}

You could write something similar to this in your test:

var spy = spyOn(ApiProvider, 'delete').andCallFake(function(model, id) {
    var def = $q.defer();
    $timeout(function() { def.resolve('something'); }, 1000)
    return def.promise;
});

And then when you call it:

var promise = CRUDService.remove();
expect(ApiProvider.delete).toHaveBeenCalledWith(CRUDService.getModelName(), CRUDService.id);

This way, you are able to mock out specific functionalities needed for your test without fully mocking out the entire service. You can find more information about this here

I hope this explanation proves useful!

Answer 2

It's always a smart move to mock out your services. By consistently doing so, it becomes much simpler to pinpoint the behavior of any newly added service.

Of course, there is no obligation to do this; you can opt to use Jasmine spies instead.

For example, if you were testing a CRUDService with a method like this:

remove: function () {
    return ApiProvider.delete(this.getModelName(), this.id);
}

You could write something similar to this in your test:

var spy = spyOn(ApiProvider, 'delete').andCallFake(function(model, id) {
    var def = $q.defer();
    $timeout(function() { def.resolve('something'); }, 1000)
    return def.promise;
});

And then when you call it:

var promise = CRUDService.remove();
expect(ApiProvider.delete).toHaveBeenCalledWith(CRUDService.getModelName(), CRUDService.id);

This way, you are able to mock out specific functionalities needed for your test without fully mocking out the entire service. You can find more information about this here

I hope this explanation proves useful!

Navigating the quandary of mocking with Jasmine in Karma while unit testing AngularJS

The service I am testing is as follows:

This is the service's dependent service `ApiProvider`:

And here is how I have conducted tests on the CRUDService so far:

To mock or not to mock a service that depends on $http?

Answer №1

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Navigating the quandary of mocking with Jasmine in Karma while unit testing AngularJS

The service I am testing is as follows:

This is the service's dependent service ApiProvider:

And here is how I have conducted tests on the CRUDService so far:

To mock or not to mock a service that depends on $http?

Answer №1

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This is the service's dependent service `ApiProvider`: