Introduction

I wanted to create some tests for tsParticles (leave a star if you want 🌟, it's free 👀), and I didn't know anything about them.

I started searching and I found some informations about Mocha and Chai for writing tests in Javascript and in TypeScript but I had to read multiple articles at once because they were incomplete.

If you need to unit test your TypeScript code you're in the right place.

Let's start!

Requirements

Before starting writing tests we need some libraries added to our project.

I will use npm but you can use yarn too (obvious, thanks).

npm install chai mocha ts-node @types/chai @types/mocha --save-dev

Once the installation is complete we are almost ready.

Add a test key to your package.json scripts, like this

"test": "env TS_NODE_COMPILER_OPTIONS='{\"module\": \"commonjs\" }' mocha -r ts-node/register 'tests/**/*.ts'"

This will set the right flag for module, if you have commonjs already you can skip everything until mocha, for ts-node that supports only commonjs modules then it runs tests using mocha.

This is a bit outdated, check out the updated article for a simpler installation.

Mocha/Chai with TypeScript (2023 update)

Matteo Bruni ・ Aug 13 '23

#typescript #tutorial #javascript #webdev

I prefer using a tests folder than some .test.ts files. This will require an exclude key in your tsconfig (if you have one, obviously).

This is a sample taken from my config

"exclude": [
  "./tests/",
  "./node_modules/",
  "./dist/"
],

Once everything is set we can start writing tests.

Tests

Writing a test with chai is really easy, I started writing almost immediately.

Let's see a sample, it's faster than all words I can write.

import { Options } from '../src/Classes/Options/Options'; // this will be your custom import
import { expect } from 'chai';

describe('Options tests', () => { // the tests container
    it('checking default options', () => { // the single test
        const options = new Options(); // this will be your class

                /* detect retina */
        expect(options.detectRetina).to.be.false; // Do I need to explain anything? It's like writing in English!

        /* fps limit */
        expect(options.fpsLimit).to.equal(30); // As I said 3 lines above

        expect(options.interactivity.modes.emitters).to.be.empty; // emitters property is an array and for this test must be empty, this syntax works with strings too
        expect(options.particles.color).to.be.an("object").to.have.property("value").to.equal("#fff"); // this is a little more complex, but still really clear
    });
});

You can see the simplicity of the syntax, chai is a really simple test writing library.

If you want to start writing your own tests that's all you need. Super easy.

If you want to read every function available in chai you can find all of them here.

Running Tests

Once the test is completed we can try it with the command we prepared at the beginning

npm test

and if you did everything right the output will be something like this

> tsparticles@1.13.0-alpha.0 test /path/to/your/project/
> env TS_NODE_COMPILER_OPTIONS='{"module": "commonjs" }' mocha -r ts-node/register 'tests/**/*.ts'



  Options tests
    ✓ checking default options
    ✓ check default preset options


  2 passing (16ms)

If something is not working you'll get a message like this

> tsparticles@1.13.0-alpha.0 test /path/to/your/project/
> env TS_NODE_COMPILER_OPTIONS='{"module": "commonjs" }' mocha -r ts-node/register 'tests/**/*.ts'



  Options tests
    1) checking default options
    ✓ check default preset options


  1 passing (48ms)
  1 failing

  1) Options tests
       checking default options:
     AssertionError: expected undefined not to be undefined
      at Context.<anonymous> (tests/Options.ts:19:45)
      at processImmediate (internal/timers.js:456:21)



npm ERR! Test failed.  See above for more details.

An error blocking any future command, so you can run the tests before the build script, like this

"build": "npm test && tsc",

and with the command below you can now test and build

npm run build

If the tests will pass the build will proceed as expected, otherwise the tests failing will stops the process.

If you want to see my configuration you can find everything here.

Happy Testing 😏