Jest: How to mock one specific method of a class

Question

Let\'s suppose I have the following class:

export default class Person {
    constructor(first, last) {
        this.first = first;
        this.last = last         


        

Answer 1

I don't see how the mocked implementation actually solves anything for you. I think this makes a bit more sense

import Person from "./Person";

describe("Person", () => {
  it("should...", () => {
    const sayMyName = Person.prototype.sayMyName = jest.fn();
    const person = new Person('guy', 'smiley');
    const expected = {
      first: 'guy',
      last: 'smiley'
    }

    person.sayMyName();

    expect(sayMyName).toHaveBeenCalledTimes(1);
    expect(person).toEqual(expected);
  });
});

Answer 2

Not really answer the question, but I want to show a use case where you want to mock a dependent class to verify another class.

For example: Foo depends on Bar. Internally Foo created an instance of Bar. You want to mock Bar for testing Foo.

Bar class

class Bar {
  public runBar(): string {
    return 'Real bar';
  }
}

export default Bar;

Foo class

import Bar from './Bar';

class Foo {
  private bar: Bar;

  constructor() {
    this.bar = new Bar();
  }

  public runFoo(): string {
    return 'real foo : ' + this.bar.runBar();
  }
}

export default Foo;

The test:

import Foo from './Foo';
import Bar from './Bar';

jest.mock('./Bar');

describe('Foo', () => {
  it('should return correct foo', () => {
    // As Bar is already mocked,
    // we just need to cast it to jest.Mock (for TypeScript) and mock whatever you want
    (Bar.prototype.runBar as jest.Mock).mockReturnValue('Mocked bar');
    const foo = new Foo();
    expect(foo.runFoo()).toBe('real foo : Mocked bar');
  });
});

See also jest.requireActual(moduleName)

Answer 3

Using jest.spyOn() is the proper Jest way of mocking a single method and leaving the rest be. Actually there are two slightly different approaches to this.

1. Modify the method only in a single object

import Person from "./Person";

test('Modify only instance', () => {
    let person = new Person('Lorem', 'Ipsum');
    let spy = jest.spyOn(person, 'sayMyName').mockImplementation(() => 'Hello');

    expect(person.sayMyName()).toBe("Hello");
    expect(person.bla()).toBe("bla");

    // unnecessary in this case, putting it here just to illustrate how to "unmock" a method
    spy.mockRestore();
});

2. Modify the class itself, so that all the instances are affected

import Person from "./Person";

beforeAll(() => {
    jest.spyOn(Person.prototype, 'sayMyName').mockImplementation(() => 'Hello');
});

afterAll(() => {
    jest.restoreAllMocks();
});

test('Modify class', () => {
    let person = new Person('Lorem', 'Ipsum');
    expect(person.sayMyName()).toBe("Hello");
    expect(person.bla()).toBe("bla");
});

And for the sake of completeness, this is how you'd mock a static method:

jest.spyOn(Person, 'myStaticMethod').mockImplementation(() => 'blah');

Answer 4

If you are using Typescript, you can do the following:

Person.prototype.sayMyName = jest.fn().mockImplementationOnce(async () => 
        await 'my name is dev'
);

And in your test, you can do something like this:

const person = new Person();
const res = await person.sayMyName();
expect(res).toEqual('my name is dev');

Hope this helps someone!

Answer 5

Have been asking similar question and I think figured out a solution. This should work no matter where Person class instance is actually used.

const Person = require("../Person");

jest.mock("../Person", function () {
    const { default: mockRealPerson } = jest.requireActual('../Person');

    mockRealPerson.prototype.sayMyName = function () {
        return "Hello";
    }    

    return mockRealPerson
});

test('MyTest', () => {
    const person = new Person();
    expect(person.sayMyName()).toBe("Hello");
    expect(person.bla()).toBe("bla");
});

Answer 6

rather than mocking the class you could extend it like this:

class MockedPerson extends Person {
  sayMyName () {
    return 'Hello'
  }
}
// and then
let person = new MockedPerson();