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jsMocha

jsMocha is a JavaScript mocking library inspired by the Ruby Mocha Gem. It's my belief that testing frameworks should not include mocking functionality, therefore jsMocha's been designed to be as agnostic as possible and should work with most testing frameworks and JavaScript libraries allowing you to switch between testing frameworks and JavaScript libraries without having to be concerned with compatibility issues. jsMocha was written by Jamie Dyer while working at Jiva Technology and is release under the MIT license.

Download

Packaged download versions of jsMocha are available in the build folder. A single file and a minified version have been provided. If you have ruby installed and want to build your own version from source run rake js:build in the project folder to generate the built jsmocha.js file from source.

Experimental Branch

There is an experimental branch of jsMocha which has more features but the API will change from time to time. If you are interested in this version of jsMocha head to the experimental branch page.

Future Plans

  • Integrated support for testing frameworks

Platform support

jsMocha has been tested on:

  • Firefox 2.0
  • Firefox 3.0
  • Firefox 3.5
  • Firefox 3.6
  • Firefox 4.0
  • Google Chrome
  • Safari 3
  • Safari 4
  • Safari 5
  • Opera 9
  • Opera 10
  • Opera 11
  • IE 6
  • IE 7
  • IE 8
  • Adobe Air

Internet Explorer 6,7 and 8 are supported, however the mockerize feature is currently unsupported.

Using jsMocha

jsMocha supports both creating pure mock objects as well as adding mocking to abilities existing objects. This allows mocking in the more traditional form where mock objects are used in conjunction with dependancy injection as well as the more modern style where mocking is added to real objects.

A mocked object has the expects() and stubs() methods available on it. These are used to create exceptions or to stub methods. Additionally the jsmocha object is available on a mocked object, this includes the methods verify(), report() and teardown(). These methods are namespaced within jsmocha to avoid any naming conflicts. There are only 3 reserved names when mocking object in jsMocha, these are expects, stubs and jsmocha, you will be unable to mock any objects that uses one of these reserved words.

Creating a mock object

Traditional mocking, this creates a pure mock object

var mock = new Mock();

To add mocking capabilities to an existing object

var greeting = { say: function(text){ alert(text) }};
var mock = new Mock(greeting);

Or a function

var greeting = function(){ this.say = function(text){ alert(text) }};
var mock = new Mock(greeting);

A call to Mock() returns the object passed to it so in the above examples mock and greeting refer to the same thing.

Adding an expectation to a mock

greeting.expects('say');

We have now set the expectation that greeting.say() should be called one time

Specifying the number of times a method should be called

greeting.expects('say'); # expected once
greeting.expects('say').once(); # expected once
greeting.expects('say').twice(); # expected 2 times
greeting.expects('say').never(); # never expected
greeting.expects('say').times(3); # expected 3 times
greeting.expects('say').times(0); # never expected
greeting.expects('say').at_least(3); # expected 3 or more times
greeting.expects('say').at_most(3); # expected 3 times or less

When adding an expectation the default number of invocations expected is 1, so greeting.expects('say') and greeting.expects('say').once() are the same. There's a bunch of convenience methods for specifying the number of times a method is expected to be invoked.

Specifying the expected parameters

The say() method should be called with the parameter string 'hello'

greeting.expects('say').passing('hello');

The say() method should be called with the parameters 'hello' and 'world'

greeting.expects('say').passing('hello', 'world');

Any number of parameters can be matched as well as any type of parameter. If you need to match complex parameters you can pass a code block to the passing() method, a parameters array is passed to the block. The matcher block can then be as complex as is needed to verify the correct parameters were received, the matcher block must return true or false depending on a successful or unsuccessful match. For example, to check that the first parameter is the string 'hello'

greeting.expects('say').passing(function(params){ return params[0] == 'hello' ? true : false; });

Specifying what the mock should return

The method say() should return the string 'greeting sent'

greeting.expects('say').returns('greeting sent');

A mock can return a different value each time it's called by passing multiple values to returns()

greeting.expects('say').returns('greeting sent once', 'greeting sent twice', 'greeting sent three times');
greeting.say('hello'); # returns 'greeting sent once'
greeting.say('hello'); # returns 'greeting sent twice'
greeting.say('hello'); # returns 'greeting sent three times'
greeting.say('hello'); # returns 'greeting sent three times', the last value will be returned for any subsequent calls

Stringing expectations together

jsMocha is designed so that expectations can be strung together neatly

greeting.expects('say').twice().passing('hello').returns('greeting sent');

This would specify the say method should be called twice with the parameter 'hello' and will return 'greeting sent'

Verifying expectations

greeting.jsmocha.verify();

Returns true or false

Getting the expectation report

greeting.jsmocha.report();

Returns a report of all failed expectations.

Resetting mocked objects, teardown

After you have finished mocking and verifying expectations of a mocked object it needs to be returned to it's original state. This can be done by either calling report() or teardown(), in the above example this would be done by calling greeting.jsmocha.report() or greeting.jsmocha.teardown(). There is also a third way to tear down by calling the class method Mock.teardown_all(), this returns all mocked objects to their original state.

Stubbing

jsMocha also supports stubbing, a stub has no expectations associated with it so can be used to stop a method performing an action such as maching a call to a remote service. To stub a method

greeting.stubs('say');

greeting.say() can now be called any number of times, calls are received by jsMocha rather than the original object.

Subs can also return data just like mocks

greeting.stubs('say').returns('a string');
greeting.stubs('say').returns(1, 2, 3, 4);

You must still call the report(), teardown() or Mock.teardown_all() methods to return stubbed objects back to their original state.

Some jsMocha magic

Using the above techniques in order to mock an object and run the verification you would need to write several lines of code

var greeting = { say: function(text){ alert(text) }};
var mock = new Mock(greeting);
greeting.expects('say');
greeting.jsmocha.verify(); # the result would be passed to a testing framework
greeting.jsmocha.report(); # again the result would be passed to a testing framework to display any errors

Thats far too much code, mocha has some special methods that allow you to cut down on the amount of code needed

Mock.mockerize()

mockerize() is a neat feature that adds mocking and subbing capabilities to all objects and functions. What this means is you can call greeting.expects('say') without needing to tell jsMocha you want to mock it before hand. When combining this with the Mock.mocked_objects array it's possible to create auto setup and verification if your testing frameworks supports global before and after blocks. To achieve this with Screw.unit

Mock.mockerize();

Screw.Unit(function() {
	after(function(){
		$(Mock.mocked_objects).each(function(i, obj){
			expect(obj).to(verify_to, true);
		});
	});
});

This allows you to write the above test case with only 1 line of mocking code

var greeting = { say: function(text){ alert(text) }};
greeting.expects('say');

Mocking is already setup on all all objects so there is no need to initialize a new mock object and the expectations are automatically verified in Screw.unit's after block.

Of course all this power has a downside, the expects and stubs methods are added to all objects and functions as well as the jsmocha object. If you don't like libraries extending native JavaScript objects don'e use the mockerize() method and stick to setting up mocks manually. You can of course still use the auto verification safely saving on manually writing verifications.

License

jsMocha is distributed under the MIT license

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