How does one unit test routes with Express?

Question

I\'m in the process of learning Node.js and have been playing around with Express. Really like the framework;however, I\'m having trouble figuring out how to write a unit/i

Answer 1

I was wondering this as well, but specifically for unit tests and not integration tests. This is what I'm doing right now,

test('/api base path', function onTest(t) {
  t.plan(1);

  var path = routerObj.path;

  t.equals(path, '/api');
});


test('Subrouters loaded', function onTest(t) {
  t.plan(1);

  var router = routerObj.router;

  t.equals(router.stack.length, 5);
});

Where the routerObj is just {router: expressRouter, path: '/api'}. I then load in subrouters with var loginRouterInfo = require('./login')(express.Router({mergeParams: true})); and then the express app calls an init-function taking in the express router as a parameter. The initRouter then calls router.use(loginRouterInfo.path, loginRouterInfo.router); to mount the subrouter.

The subrouter can be tested with:

var test = require('tape');
var routerInit = require('../login');
var express = require('express');
var routerObj = routerInit(express.Router());

test('/login base path', function onTest(t) {
  t.plan(1);

  var path = routerObj.path;

  t.equals(path, '/login');
});


test('GET /', function onTest(t) {
  t.plan(2);

  var route = routerObj.router.stack[0].route;

  var routeGetMethod = route.methods.get;
  t.equals(routeGetMethod, true);

  var routePath = route.path;
  t.equals(routePath, '/');
});

Answer 2

Change your response object:

var response = {
    viewName: ""
    , data : {}
    , render: function(view, viewData) {
        this.viewName = view;
        this.data = viewData;
    }
};

And it will work.

Answer 3

To achieve unit testing instead of integration testing, I mocked the response object of the request handler.

/* app.js */
import endpointHandler from './endpointHandler';
// ...
app.post('/endpoint', endpointHandler);
// ...

/* endpointHandler.js */
const endpointHandler = (req, res) => {
  try {
    const { username, location } = req.body;

    if (!(username && location)) {
      throw ({ status: 400, message: 'Missing parameters' });
    }

    res.status(200).json({
      location,
      user,
      message: 'Thanks for sharing your location with me.',
    });
  } catch (error) {
    console.error(error);
    res.status(error.status).send(error.message);
  }
};

export default endpointHandler;

/* response.mock.js */
import { EventEmitter } from 'events';

class Response extends EventEmitter {
  private resStatus;

  json(response, status) {
    this.send(response, status);
  }

  send(response, status) {
    this.emit('response', {
      response,
      status: this.resStatus || status,
    });
  }

  status(status) {
    this.resStatus = status;
    return this;
  }
}

export default Response;

/* endpointHandler.test.js */
import Response from './response.mock';
import endpointHandler from './endpointHander';

describe('endpoint handler test suite', () => {
  it('should fail on empty body', (done) => {
    const res = new Response();

    res.on('response', (response) => {
      expect(response.status).toBe(400);
      done();
    });

    endpointHandler({ body: {} }, res);
  });
});

Then, to achieve integration testing, you can mock your endpointHandler and call the endpoint with supertest.

Answer 4

In my case the only I wanted to test is if the right handler has been called. I wanted to use supertest to laverage the simplicity of making the requests to the routing middleware. I am using Typescript a and this is the solution that worked for me

// ProductController.ts

import { Request, Response } from "express";

class ProductController {
  getAll(req: Request, res: Response): void {
    console.log("this has not been implemented yet");
  }
}
export default ProductController

The routes

// routes.ts
import ProductController  from "./ProductController"

const app = express();
const productController = new ProductController();
app.get("/product", productController.getAll);

The tests

// routes.test.ts

import request from "supertest";
import { Request, Response } from "express";

const mockGetAll = jest
  .fn()
  .mockImplementation((req: Request, res: Response) => {
    res.send({ value: "Hello visitor from the future" });
  });

jest.doMock("./ProductController", () => {
  return jest.fn().mockImplementation(() => {
    return {
      getAll: mockGetAll,

    };
  });
});

import app from "./routes";

describe("Routes", () => {
  beforeEach(() => {
    mockGetAll.mockImplementation((req: Request, res: Response) => {
      res.send({ value: "You can also change the implementation" });
    });
  });

  it("GET /product integration test", async () => {
    const result = await request(app).get("/product");

    expect(mockGetAll).toHaveBeenCalledTimes(1);

  });



  it("GET an undefined route should return status 404", async () => {
    const response = await request(app).get("/random");
    expect(response.status).toBe(404);
  });
});

I had some issues to get the mocking to work. but using jest.doMock and the specific order you see in the example makes it work.

Answer 5

As others have recommended in comments, it looks like the canonical way to test Express controllers is through supertest.

An example test might look like this:

describe('GET /users', function(){
  it('respond with json', function(done){
    request(app)
      .get('/users')
      .set('Accept', 'application/json')
      .expect(200)
      .end(function(err, res){
        if (err) return done(err);
        done()
      });
  })
});

Upside: you can test your entire stack in one go.

Downside: it feels and acts a bit like integration testing.

Answer 6

if unit testing with express 4 note this example from gjohnson :

var express = require('express');
var request = require('supertest');
var app = express();
var router = express.Router();
router.get('/user', function(req, res){
  res.send(200, { name: 'tobi' });
});
app.use(router);
request(app)
  .get('/user')
  .expect('Content-Type', /json/)
  .expect('Content-Length', '15')
  .expect(200)
  .end(function(err, res){
    if (err) throw err;
  });