$httpBackend in AngularJs Jasmine unit test

Question

I'm unable to get my unit test to work properly. I have a $scope array that starts out empty, but should be filled with an $http.get(). In the real environment, there'd be approx 15 or so objects in the array, but for my unit test I just grabbed 2. For the unit test, I have:

expect($scope.stuff.length).toBe(2);

But jasmine's error is: Expected 0 to be 2.

here's my controller.js:

$scope.stuff = [];
$scope.getStuff = function () {
    var url = site.root + 'api/stuff';
    $http.get(url)
        .success(function (data) {
            $scope.stuff = data;
        })
        .error(function(error) {
            console.log(error);
        });
};

and my controller.spec.js is:

/// <reference path="../../../scripts/angular-loader.min.js" />
/// <reference path="../../../scripts/angular.min.js" />
/// <reference path="../../../scripts/angular-mocks.js" />
/// <reference path="../../../scripts/angular-resource.js" />
/// <reference path="../../../scripts/controller.js" />
beforeEach(module('ui.router'));
beforeEach(module('ngResource'));
beforeEach(module('ngMockE2E'));
beforeEach(module('myApplication'));
var $scope;
var controller;
var httpLocalBackend;

beforeEach(inject(function ($rootScope, $controller, $injector) {
    $scope = $rootScope.$new();
    controller = $controller("StuffController", {
        $scope: $scope
    });
}));

beforeEach(inject(function ($httpBackend) {
    httpLocalBackend = $httpBackend;
}));

it('should get stuff', function () {
    var url = '/api/stuff';
    var httpResponse = [{ "stuffId": 1 }, { "stuffId": 2 }];
    httpLocalBackend.expectGET(url).respond(200, httpResponse);
    $scope.getStuff();
    expect($scope.stuff.length).toBe(2);
    //httpLocalBackend.flush();
} );

Now, obviously, I changed variable names and such since this is for work, but hopefully this is enough information for anybody to help me. I can provide more if needed. I also get a second error when uncommenting the .flush() line, but I'll get to that a bit later.

Any help is greatly appreciated and thanks in advance!

EDIT:

Finally got it working! Here's my final code:

it('should get stuff', function () {
    var url = '/api/stuff';
    var httpResponse = [{ "stuffId": 1 }, { "stuffId": 2 }];
    httpLocalBackend.expectGET(url).respond(200, httpResponse);
    $scope.getStuff();
    httpLocalBackend.flush();
    expect($scope.stuff.length).toBe(2);
} );

EDIT 2: I ran into another problem, which I think may have been the root cause of this. See Unit test failing when function called on startup

Answer 1

You need to place httpLocalBackend.flush() statement before expect($scope.stuff.length).toBe(2). Once you make a request you need to flush it for the data to be available in your client code.

it('should get stuff', function () {
    var url = '/api/roles';
    var httpResponse = [{ "stuffId": 1 }, { "stuffId": 2 }];
    scope.getStuff(); //Just moved this from after expectGET
    httpLocalBackend.expectGET(url).respond(200, httpResponse);
    httpLocalBackend.flush();
    expect($scope.stuff.length).toBe(2);
} );

Try this.