How to write unit test for sailsjs controller in mocha

Question

I am new with sailsjs, nodejs and mocha unit test. Anyone can give me some guidance in how I can write unit test for the following controller?

getdata : function(req, res) {
    User.findOne(req.id.query).populateAll()
        .exec(function(err, res) {
            if(err) { console.log(err); }
            req.id = res;
            return res.send(req.id);
    });
},

config/route.js

module.exports.routes = {
  'get /list/item':  'manager.getdata',
}

Answer 1

Ok, firstly create test folder inside root of app. Add any kind of folder structure you prefer... Here is a screenshot from one of mine projects:

I use supertest and should... So if you want to generally copy paste things I'll type here please install (together with mocha of course):

npm install supertest
npm install should

Next, inside bootstrap.test.js (check image above to see where to put it for example) add configuration like:

var Sails = require('sails');

before(function (done) {
    process.env.NODE_ENV = 'test';
    process.env.PORT = 9999;

    Sails.lift({
        models: {
            connection: 'localDiskDb',
            migrate: 'drop'
        }
    }, function (err, server) {
        sails = server;
        if (err) return done(err);

        sails.log.info('***** Starting tests... *****');
        console.log('\n');

        done(null, sails);
    });
});

after(function (done) {
    sails.lower(done);
});

Now, add your first test... In your example I would put it inside test/integration/controllers/MyController.test.js

This is demo code you could use for your test:

var request = require('supertest'),
    should = require('should');


describe('My controller', function () {

    before(function (done) {
        done(null, sails);
    });


    it('should get data', function (done) {
        request(sails.hooks.http.app)
            .get('/list/item')
            .send({id: 123, someOtherParam: "something"})
            .expect(200)
            .end(function (err, res) {
                if (err) return done(err);

                should.exist(res.body);

                done();
            });
    });
});

Now, open mocha.opts file (if you are confused look at screenshot above) and add something like this:

--bail
--timeout 20s
test/bootstrap.test.js
test/integration/controllers/**/*.test.js

Finally, type mocha in terminal from inside your root folder to run tests!

You can also add script to package.json like this:

  "scripts": {
    "test": "mocha"
  },

And then simply run: npm test