How to test the type of a thrown exception in Jest

Question

I\'m working with some code where I need to test the type of an exception thrown by a function (is it TypeError, ReferenceError, etc.?).

My current testing framework

Answer 1

I ended up writing a convenience method for our test-utils library

/**
 *  Utility method to test for a specific error class and message in Jest
 * @param {fn, expectedErrorClass, expectedErrorMessage }
 * @example   failTest({
      fn: () => {
        return new MyObject({
          param: 'stuff'
        })
      },
      expectedErrorClass: MyError,
      expectedErrorMessage: 'stuff not yet implemented'
    })
 */
  failTest: ({ fn, expectedErrorClass, expectedErrorMessage }) => {
    try {
      fn()
      expect(true).toBeFalsy()
    } catch (err) {
      let isExpectedErr = err instanceof expectedErrorClass
      expect(isExpectedErr).toBeTruthy()
      expect(err.message).toBe(expectedErrorMessage)
    }
  }