dev_guide.unit-testing.html

<h1>Developer Guide: Unit Testing</h1>
<div class="developer-guide-unit-testing"><fieldset class="workInProgress"><legend>Work in Progress</legend>
This page is currently being revised. It might be incomplete or contain inaccuracies.</fieldset>
<p>JavaScript is a dynamically typed language which comes with great power of expression, but it also
come with almost no-help from the compiler. For this reason we feel very strongly that any code
written in JavaScript needs to come with a strong set of tests. We have built many features into
angular which makes testing your angular applications easy. So there is no excuse for not do it.</p>

<h2>It is all about NOT mixing concerns</h2>

<p>Unit testing as the name implies is about testing individual units of code. Unit tests try to
answer the question: Did I think about the logic correctly. Does the sort function order the list
in the right order. In order to answer such question it is very important that we can isolate it.
That is because when we are testing the sort function we don't want to be forced into crating
related pieces such as the DOM elements, or making any XHR calls in getting the data to sort. While
this may seem obvious it usually is very difficult to be able to call an individual function on a
typical project. The reason is that the developers often time mix concerns, and they end up with a
piece of code which does everything. It reads the data from XHR, it sorts it and then it
manipulates the DOM. With angular we try to make it easy for you to do the right thing, and so we
provide dependency injection for your XHR (which you can mock out) and we crated abstraction which
allow you to sort your model without having to resort to manipulating the DOM. So that in the end,
it is easy to write a sort function which sorts some data, so that your test can create a data set,
apply the function, and assert that the resulting model is in the correct order. The test does not
have to wait for XHR, or create the right kind of DOM, or assert that your function has mutated the
DOM in the right way. Angular is written with testability in mind, but it still requires that you
do the right thing. We tried to make the right thing easy, but angular is not magic, which means if
you don't follow these, you may very well end up with an untestable application.</p>

<h3>Dependency Inject</h3>

<p>There are several ways in which you can get a hold of a dependency:
1. You could create it using the <code>new</code> operator.
2. You could look for it in a well know place, also known as global singleton.
3. You could ask a registry (also known as service registry) for it. (But how do you get a hold of
the registry? Must likely by looking it up in a well know place. See #2)
4. You could expect that the it be handed to you.</p>

<p>Out of the list above only the last of is testable. Lets look at why:</p>

<h4>Using the <code>new</code> operator</h4>

<p>While there is nothing wrong with the <code>new</code> operator fundamentally the issue is that calling a new
on a constructor permanently binds the call site to the type. For example lets say that we are
trying to instantiate an <code>XHR</code> so that we can get some data from the server.</p><div ng:non-bindable><pre class="brush: js;">
function MyClass(){
  this.doWork = function(){
    var xhr = new XHR();
    xhr.open(method, url, true);
    xhr.onreadystatechange = function(){...}
    xhr.send();
  }
}
</pre></div><p>The issue becomes, that in tests, we would very much like to instantiate a <code>MockXHR</code> which would
allow us to return fake data and simulate network failures. By calling <code>new XHR()</code> we are
permanently bound to the actual one, and there is no good way to replace it. Yes there is monkey
patching, that is a bad idea for many reasons, which is outside the scope of this document.</p>

<p>The class above is hard to test since we have to resort to monkey patching:</p><div ng:non-bindable><pre class="brush: js;">
var oldXHR = XHR;
XHR = function MockXHR(){};
var myClass = new MyClass();
myClass.doWork();
// assert that MockXHR got called with the right arguments
XHR = oldXHR; // if you forget this bad things will happen
</pre></div><h4>Global look-up:</h4>

<p>Another way to approach the problem is look for the service in a well known location.</p><div ng:non-bindable><pre class="brush: js;">
function MyClass(){
  this.doWork = function(){
    global.xhr({
      method:'...',
      url:'...',
      complete:function(response){ ... }
    })
  }
}
</pre></div><p>While no new instance of dependency is being created, it is fundamentally the same as <code>new</code>, in
that there is no good way to intercept the call to <code>global.xhr</code> for testing purposes, other then
through monkey patching. The basic issue for testing is that global variable needs to be mutated in
order to replace it with call to a mock method. For further explanation why this is bad see: <a href="http://misko.hevery.com/code-reviewers-guide/flaw-brittle-global-state-singletons/">Brittle Global State &amp; Singletons</a></p>

<p>The class above is hard to test since we have to change global state:</p><div ng:non-bindable><pre class="brush: js;">
var oldXHR = glabal.xhr;
glabal.xhr = function mockXHR(){};
var myClass = new MyClass();
myClass.doWork();
// assert that mockXHR got called with the right arguments
global.xhr = oldXHR; // if you forget this bad things will happen
</pre></div><h4>Service Registry:</h4>

<p>It may seem as that this can be solved by having a registry for all of the services, and then
having the tests replace the services as needed.</p><div ng:non-bindable><pre class="brush: js;">
function MyClass() {
  var serviceRegistry = ????;
  this.doWork = function(){
    var xhr = serviceRegistry.get('xhr');
    xhr({
      method:'...',
      url:'...',
      complete:function(response){ ... }
    })
}
</pre></div><p>However, where dose the serviceRegistry come from? if it is:
* <code>new</code>-ed up, the the test has no chance to reset the services for testing
*  global look-up, then the service returned is global as well (but resetting is easier, since
there is only one global variable to be reset).</p>

<p>The class above is hard to test since we have to change global state:</p><div ng:non-bindable><pre class="brush: js;">
var oldServiceLocator = glabal.serviceLocator;
glabal.serviceLocator.set('xhr', function mockXHR(){});
var myClass = new MyClass();
myClass.doWork();
// assert that mockXHR got called with the right arguments
glabal.serviceLocator = oldServiceLocator; // if you forget this bad things will happen
</pre></div><h4>Passing in Dependencies:</h4>

<p>Lastly the dependency can be passed in.</p><div ng:non-bindable><pre class="brush: js;">
function MyClass(xhr) {
  this.doWork = function(){
    xhr({
      method:'...',
      url:'...',
      complete:function(response){ ... }
    })
}
</pre></div><p>This is the preferred way since the code makes no assumptions as to where the <code>xhr</code> comes from,
rather that whoever created the class was responsible for passing it in. Since the creator of the
class should be different code than the user of the class, it separates the responsibility of
creation from the logic, and that is what dependency-injection is in a nutshell.</p>

<p>The class above is very testable, since in the test we can write:</p><div ng:non-bindable><pre class="brush: js;">
function xhrMock(args) {...}
var myClass = new MyClass(xhrMock);
myClass.doWork();
// assert that xhrMock got called with the right arguments
</pre></div><p>Notice that no global variables were harmed in the writing of this test.</p>

<p>Angular comes with <a href="#!/guide/dev_guide.di">dependency-injection</a> built in which makes the right thing
easy to do, but you still need to do it if you wish to take advantage of the testability story.</p>

<h3>Controllers</h3>

<p>What makes each application unique is its logic, which is what we would like to test. If the logic
for your application is mixed in with DOM manipulation, it will be hard to test as in the example
below:</p><div ng:non-bindable><pre class="brush: js;">
function PasswordController(){
  // get references to DOM elements
  var msg = $('.ex1 span');
  var input = $('.ex1 input');
  var strength;

  this.grade = function(){
    msg.removeClass(strength);
    var pwd = input.val();
    password.text(pwd);
    if (pwd.length &gt; 8) {
      strength = 'strong';
    } else if (pwd.length &gt; 3) {
      strength = 'medium';
    } else {
      strength = 'weak';
    }
    msg
     .addClass(strength)
     .text(strength);
  }
}
</pre></div><p>The code above is problematic from testability, since it requires your test to have the right kind
of DOM present when the code executes. The test would look like this:</p><div ng:non-bindable><pre class="brush: js; html-script: true;">
var input = $('&lt;input type="text"/&gt;');
var span = $('&lt;span&gt;');
$('body').html('&lt;div class="ex1"&gt;')
  .find('div')
    .append(input)
    .append(span);
var pc = new PasswordController();
input.val('abc');
pc.grade();
expect(span.text()).toEqual('weak');
$('body').html('');
</pre></div><p>In angular the controllers are strictly separated from the DOM manipulation logic which results in
a much easier testability story as can be seen in this example:</p><div ng:non-bindable><pre class="brush: js;">
function PasswordCntrl(){
  this.password = '';
  this.grade = function(){
    var size = this.password.length;
    if (size &gt; 8) {
      this.strength = 'strong';
    } else if (size &gt; 3) {
      this.strength = 'medium';
    } else {
      this.strength = 'weak';
    }
  };
}
</pre></div><p>and the tests is straight forward</p><div ng:non-bindable><pre class="brush: js;">
var pc = new PasswordController();
pc.password('abc');
pc.grade();
expect(span.strength).toEqual('weak');
</pre></div><p>Notice that the test is not only much shorter but it is easier to follow what is going on. We say
that such a test tells a story, rather then asserting random bits which don't seem to be related.</p>

<h3>Filters</h3>

<p><a href="#!/api/angular.filter"><code>Filters</code></a> are functions which transform the data into user readable
format. They are important because they remove the formatting responsibility from the application
logic, further simplifying the application logic.</p><div ng:non-bindable><pre class="brush: js;">
angular.filter('length', function(text){
  return (''+(text||'')).length;
});

var length = angular.filter('length');
expect(length(null)).toEqual(0);
expect(length('abc')).toEqual(3);
</pre></div><h3>Directives</h3>

<p>Directives in angular are responsible for updating the DOM when the state of the model changes.</p>

<h3>Mocks</h3>

<p>oue</p>

<h3>Global State Isolation</h3>

<p>oue</p>

<h2>Preferred way of Testing</h2>

<p>uo</p>

<h3>JavaScriptTestDriver</h3>

<p>ou</p>

<h3>Jasmine</h3>

<p>ou</p>

<h3>Sample project</h3>

<p>uoe</p></div>