How to write test cases for titanium with alloy - mocha.js

Question

I am stuck while writing test cases for alloy framework as i am not getting how to use controllers and alloy files in mocha testing framework. I searched on google and few links suggested below code to moke a controller but it throws error that "TypeError: alloy.createController is not a function".
var alloy = require('../../alloy');
it('Verify row controller', function() {
console.log(JSON.stringify(alloy))
var controller = alloy.createController('login', {
name : "uniqueName",
});
// if(controller.passwordTest.value !== "uniqueName"){
// throw new ("Verify row controller FAILED");
// }
});

Answer 1

Currently, I can show you a (slightly modified) example of our codebase.
First of all, our controller tests are pure javascript tests. All calls to the Ti api are executed against a mock. We solely focus on the controller under test and all dependencies are mocked.
We rely on jasmine and jasmine-npm for that.
install jasmine-npm; see https://github.com/jasmine/jasmine-npm
create 'spec' folder in the root of your project (folder with tiapp.xml)
place all your test files inside this folder
the filenames of test files must end with _spec.js
run the jasmine command from within the root folder of your project
describe('authenticate controller test', function() {
var USER_NAME = "John Doe";
var fooControllerMock = {
getView: function(){}
};
var fooViewMock = {
open: function(){}
}
Ti = {
// create here a mock for all Ti* functions and properties you invoke in your controller
}
Alloy = {
CFG: {
timeout: 100
},
Globals: {
loading: {
hide: function(){}
},
networkClient: {
hasAutoLogin: function(){}
},
notifications: {
showError: function(){}
}
},
createController: function(){}
};
var controllerUnderTest; // class under test
$ = {
btnAuthenticate: {
addEventListener: function(){}
},
authenticate: {
addEventListener: function(){},
close: function(){}
},
username: {
addEventListener: function(){},
getValue: function(){}
},
password: {
addEventListener: function(){}
},
windowContainer: {
addEventListener: function(){}
}
};
L = function(s){
return s;
};
beforeEach(function () {
controllerUnderTest = require('../app/controllers/auth');
});
it('should create foo controller when authentication was succesful', function(){
spyOn(Alloy.Globals.loading, 'hide');
spyOn(Alloy, 'createController').and.returnValue(fooControllerMock);
spyOn(fooControllerMock, 'getView').and.returnValue(fooViewMock);
spyOn($.username, 'getValue').and.returnValue(USER_NAME);
spyOn($.auth, 'close');
controllerUnderTest.test._onAuthSuccess();
expect(Alloy.Globals.loading.hide).toHaveBeenCalled();
expect(Alloy.createController).toHaveBeenCalledWith('foo');
expect(fooControllerMock.getView).toHaveBeenCalled();
expect($.auth.close).toHaveBeenCalled();
});
it('should show error message when a login error has occured', function(){
spyOn(Alloy.Globals.loading, 'hide');
spyOn(Alloy.Globals.notifications, 'showError');
controllerUnderTest.test._onAuthLoginError();
expect(Alloy.Globals.loading.hide).toHaveBeenCalled();
expect(Alloy.Globals.notifications.showError).toHaveBeenCalledWith('msg.auth.failure');
});
});
Be sure to write a mock implementation(just empty) for all Ti* stuff you call from within your controller. I know this is quite cumbersome but a solution is on it's way.
Note that we already created an npm package which has a generated mock for this (based on api.jsca), together with some code with which you can mock all required dependencies, together with a set of testing best practices. However we will validate this code internally before we opensource it. I hope we can write our blog post and expose our accompanying github repo within a few weeks. Just keep an eye on tiSlack.
Controller code:
function _onAuthSuccess() {
Alloy.Globals.loading.hide();
Alloy.createController('foo').getView().open();
$.authenticate.close();
}
function _onAuthLoginError() {
Alloy.Globals.loading.hide();
Alloy.Globals.notifications.showError(L('msg.auth.failure'));
}
function _onAuthTokenValidationFailure() {
Alloy.Globals.loading.hide();
}
function _authenticate() {
var username = $.username.value;
var password = $.password.value;
if(Alloy.Globals.validationEmail.isValidEmailAddress(username)){
Alloy.Globals.loading.show(L('authenticate.msg.logging.in'), false);
} else {
Alloy.Globals.notifications.showError(L('app.error.invalid.email'));
}
}
function _onNetworkAbsent() {
Alloy.Globals.loading.hide();
Alloy.Globals.notifications.showError(L('global.no.network.connection.available'));
}
function _hideKeyboard() {
$.username.blur();
$.password.blur();
}
function _focusPassword() {
$.username.blur();
$.password.focus();
}
function _init() {
Ti.App.addEventListener('auth:success', _onAuthSuccess);
Ti.App.addEventListener('auth:loginFailed', _onAuthLoginError);
Ti.App.addEventListener('app:parseError', _onAppParseError);
Ti.App.addEventListener('network:none', _onNetworkAbsent);
$.btnAuthenticate.addEventListener('click', ..);
$.authenticate.addEventListener('close', _cleanup);
$.username.addEventListener('return', _focusPassword);
$.password.addEventListener('return', _authenticate);
$.windowContainer.addEventListener('touchstart', _hideKeyboard);
}
_init();
function _cleanup() {
Ti.API.info('Closing and destroying the auth controller');
...
$.windowContainer.removeEventListener('touchstart', _hideKeyboard);
$.destroy();
$.off();
}
module.exports = {
test: {
_onAuthSuccess: _onAuthSuccess,
_onAuthLoginError: _onAuthLoginError
}
}
and the corresponding view:
<Alloy>
<Window>
<View id="windowContainer">
<TextField id="username" />
<TextField id="password" >
<Button id="btnAuthenticate" />
</View>
</Window>
</Alloy>

Answer 2

Titanium internally uses Ti-Mocha to write unit-tests for all of it's components. It's a modified version of Mocha and uses test-suites, test-cases, chaining and much more to test suitable code-coverage. Give it a try!