Integration Testing in JavaScript

Launchpad’s JavaScript testing is built around YUI 3’s yuitest library. We use the Graded Browser Support chart to determine which browser’s code should be regularly tested in.

Every JavaScript component should be tested first and foremost using unit testing.

We have infrastructure to write tests centred on the integration between the JavaScript component and the app server (regular API or view/++model++ page api.)

These are still written using the yuitest library, but they are loaded and can access a “real” appserver (the one started by the AppServerLayer).

The testing framework also allows testing integration of the component on the page itself (answering the question: Is it hooked up properly?) through loading a page through an iframe for inspection. XXX: Give more information on how to do this.

Creating the tests

  • Use standard_yuixhr_test_template.js and standard_yuixhr_test_template.py in the root of the Launchpad tree as templates. Copy and rename both files to the same directory. You can put them in the usual javascript/tests subdirectory.

  • The .js file contains the tests using the standard yuitest library.

  • The .py file contains fixtures that will operate within the app server. They should create content through the standard LaunchpadObjectFactory that will be accessed by the test. The database is automatically reset after every test.

Running the tests

  • We have tests discoverer that will make these tests run automatically as part of the test suite.

  • To run manually, start the test-appserver using make run-testapp.

  • Visit in your browser https://launchpad.dev:8085/+yuitest/path-to-test-basename-from-root So for example, if you copied the templates to lib/lp/bugs/javascript/tests/test_some_xhr.js, you can run the tests by accessing https://launchapd.dev:8085/+yuitest/lib/lp/bugs/javascript/tests/test_some_xhr.

Gotchas

  • When loading https://launchpad.dev:8085/+yuitest if you see “cannot import Python fixture file” it may be due to not having __init__.py files in the directory and parent directories where you’ve put your new .py test fixture.