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Jasmine JavaScript Testing Update
Jasmine JavaScript Testing Update

Jasmine JavaScript Testing Update: Test your JavaScript applications efficiently using Jasmine and React.js

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Profile Icon Paulo Vitor Zacharias Ragonha
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€18.99 per month
Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon Half star icon 4.2 (14 Ratings)
Paperback Apr 2015 134 pages 1st Edition
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Arrow left icon
Profile Icon Paulo Vitor Zacharias Ragonha
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€18.99 per month
Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon Half star icon 4.2 (14 Ratings)
Paperback Apr 2015 134 pages 1st Edition
eBook
€8.99 €23.99
Paperback
€29.99
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Free Trial
Renews at €18.99p/m
eBook
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€29.99
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Jasmine JavaScript Testing Update

Chapter 2. Your First Spec

This chapter is about the basics, and we are going to guide you through how to write your first spec, think in test-first terms for development, and also show you all the available global Jasmine functions. By the end of the chapter, you should know how Jasmine works and be ready to start doing your first tests by yourself.

The Investment Tracker application

To get you started, we need an example scenario: consider that you are developing an application to track investments in the stock market.

The following screenshot of the form illustrates how a user might create a new investment on this application:

The Investment Tracker application

This is a form to add investments

This form will allow the input of three values that define an investment:

  • First, we will input Symbol, which represents which company (stock) the user is investing in
  • Then, we will input how many Shares the user has bought (or invested in)
  • Finally, we will input how much the user has paid for each share (Share price)

If you are unfamiliar with how the stock market works, imagine you are shopping for groceries. To make a purchase, you must specify what you are buying, how many items you are buying, and how much you are going to pay. These concepts translate to an investment as:

  • A stock, which is defined by a symbol, such as PETO, can be understood to be a grocery type
  • The number of...

Jasmine basics and thinking in BDD

Based on the application presented previously, we can start writing acceptance criteria that define investment:

  • Given an investment, it should be of a stock
  • Given an investment, it should have the invested shares' quantity
  • Given an investment, it should have the share price paid
  • Given an investment, it should have a cost

Using the standalone distribution downloaded in the previous chapter, the first thing we need to do is create a new spec file. This file can be created anywhere, but it is a good idea to stick to a convention, and Jasmine already has a good one: specs should be in the /spec folder. Create an InvestmentSpec.js file and add the following lines:

describe("Investment", function() {

});

The describe function is a global Jasmine function used to define test contexts. When used as the first call in a spec, it creates a new test suite (a collection of test cases). It accepts two parameters, which are as follows:

  • The name of the test suite...

Setup and teardown

There are three more acceptance criteria to be implemented. The next in the list is as follows:

"Given an investment, it should have the invested shares' quantity."

Writing it should be as simple as the previous spec was. In the InvestmentSpec.js file inside the spec folder, you can translate this new criterion into a new spec called should have the invested shares' quantity, as follows:

describe("Investment", function() {
  it("should be of a stock", function() {
    var stock = new Stock();
    var investment = new Investment({
      stock: stock,
      shares: 100
    });
    expect(investment.stock).toBe(stock);
  });

  it("should have the invested shares' quantity", function() {
    var stock = new Stock();
    var investment = new Investment({
      stock: stock,
      shares: 100
    });
    expect(investment.shares).toEqual(100);
  });
});

You can see that apart from having written the new spec, we have also...

Nested describes

Nested describes are useful when you want to describe similar behavior between specs. Suppose we want the following two new acceptance criteria:

  • Given an investment, when its stock share price valorizes, it should have a positive return on investment (ROI)
  • Given an investment, when its stock share price valorizes, it should be a good investment

Both these criteria share the same behavior when the investment's stock share price valorizes.

To translate this into Jasmine, you can nest a call to the describe function inside the existing one in the InvestmentSpec.js file (I removed the rest of the code for the purpose of demonstration; it is still there):

describe("Investment", function()
  describe("when its stock share price valorizes", function() {
   
  });
});

It should behave just like the outer one, so you can add specs (it) and use the setup and teardown functions (beforeEach, afterEach).

Setup and teardown

When using the setup and teardown functions...

Summary

In this chapter, you learned how to think in BDD and drive your code from your specs. You also became acquainted with the basic Jasmine global functions (describe, it, beforeEach, and afterEach) and have a good understanding of what is required to create a spec in Jasmine.

You got familiar with Jasmine matchers and know how powerful they are in describing a spec intent. You even learned to create a matcher of your own.

By now, you should be familiar with creating new specs and driving the development of your new application.

In the next chapter, we are going to take a look at how we can use the concepts learned in this chapter to start testing web applications, which are most commonly jQuery and HTML forms.

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Description

This book is for web developers and designers who work with React.js and JavaScript and who are new to unit testing and automation. It's assumed that you have a basic knowledge of JavaScript and HTML.

What you will learn

  • Understand and use the power of Jasmine to create better and more maintainable code bases
  • Drive your application development entirely by tests
  • Write modular and reusable code through the power of ECMA Script 6 (ES6) modules
  • Use asynchronous tests, stubs, and spies optimally
  • Test drive a React.js singlepage application
  • Optimize your code to unleash the power of tooling and automation

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Publication date : Apr 24, 2015
Length: 134 pages
Edition : 1st
Language : English
ISBN-13 : 9781785282041
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Length: 134 pages
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Language : English
ISBN-13 : 9781785282041
Category :
Languages :
Tools :

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Table of Contents

9 Chapters
1. Getting Started with Jasmine Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
2. Your First Spec Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
3. Testing Frontend Code Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
4. Asynchronous Testing – AJAX Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
5. Jasmine Spies Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
6. Light Speed Unit Testing Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
7. Testing React Applications Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
8. Build Automation Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
Index Chevron down icon Chevron up icon

Customer reviews

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Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon Half star icon 4.2
(14 Ratings)
5 star 64.3%
4 star 7.1%
3 star 14.3%
2 star 14.3%
1 star 0%
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Rose May 08, 2019
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Great reference book.
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Richard S. Dec 25, 2014
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Very, very well written! The author stands out in a field that can be very difficult to write books for!
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Krunal Jhaveri Jul 14, 2015
Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon 5
I was never a test person, until the start of agile world. Now I feel its one of the most important task list for any developer and Jasmine is the best for any javascript application. This update to the previous edition, does all the needful to you. It covers all the basics to right up-to how to code production ready unit test. It has certainly help improved my quality of code and thus would recommend this book to everyone.
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J.P. Jan 04, 2014
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This is a fantastic book but it's not without flaws. I grew up in an era where you typed code in and that's how you learned what to do. There's plenty of that in this book (which is great), but there are big gaps in the source code. You can't just follow along in the book and end up where you need to be. I had to download the code from Packt to fill in the missing details. With that said, this is a great book. It's concise and to the point. No BS chapters on why unit testing is important and other nonsense publishers use to get larger books.
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Dave Bouwman Oct 31, 2013
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I'd been using Jasmine for a few months when I got this book (from the publisher) and I must say that it immediately helped my write better tests. Unlike many books on unit testing, the examples in this book are not trivial. They mirror real-world application problems, and the author narrates the thought process, guiding you from a naive implementation that is difficult to test, through to a cleaner, testable implementation. I gained a lot of insights by reading these narratives, and that alone make this book worthwhile reading.What's really great is that the author takes it further - by refactoring the "application" to use Backbone.js. If you've ever wondered how to do in-depth testing of Backbone views, or how to test event hooks between views and models, this book covers that.Bottom line: if you are using jasmine - this is a great resource. If you are using Jasmine and Backbone - this is a must read.
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