Mocha Chai Tests Pass buth shouldn't - mocha.js

Question

Here's the current test:
describe('/POST Register Page', function() {
it('it should register new user', function(/*done*/) {
chai.request(server)
.post('/auth/register')
.send(new_user_data)
.end(function(res) {
expect(res).to.have.status(2017);
// done();
})
})
})
The last I checked, there's no http code as 2017, however, it still passes:
Registration
Get register page
GET /auth/register 200 6.989 ms - 27
✓ it should get register page
/POST Register Page
✓ it should register new user
2 passing (147ms)
I want to simply post something, then get a response back, and play with the response.
If I include the done(), I get the timeout error:
1) Registration /POST Register Page it should register new user:
Error: Timeout of 3000ms exceeded. For async tests and hooks, ensure "done()" is called; if returning a Promise, ensure it resolves.
I can't get anything to work, as for whether wrong or right, the tests pass.
Although this get request is passing as expected:
describe('Get register page', function() {
it('it should get register page', function(done) {
chai.request(server)
.get('/auth/register')
.end(function(err, res) {
expect(err).to.be.null;
expect(res).to.have.status(200);
done();
})
})
})
I'm new at this mocha-cum-chai-chai-http thing, and the experience so far is weird.
Thanks.

Answer 1

Your POST request is probably taking longer than 3 seconds to complete, therefore mocha throws the timeout error.
You can try setting the timeout to a larger value like:
describe('/POST Register Page', function() {
// timeout in milliseconds
this.timeout(15000);
// test case
it('it should register new user', function(done) {
chai.request(server)
.post('/auth/register')
.send(new_user_data)
.end(function(res) {
expect(res).to.have.status(200);
done();
})
})
})
With some trial, you can figure out an optimum value of timeout to set in your tests.
When you don't use the done() callback, mocha simply skips the assertions without waiting for the actual response to arrive. Since the assertions in .end() block never get executed, mocha passes the test as it faces no assertions. I had faced something similar when I first started out with TDD, which I learned about the hard way.
Reference:
Because the end function is passed a callback, assertions are run
asynchronously. Therefore, a mechanism must be used to notify the
testing framework that the callback has completed. Otherwise, the test
will pass before the assertions are checked.