Loading a mock JSON file within Karma+AngularJS test
I have an AngularJS app set up with tests using Karma+Jasmine. I have a function I want to test that takes a large JSON object, converts it to a format that's more consumable by the rest of the app, and returns that converted object. That's it.
For my tests, I'd like you have separate JSON files (*.json) with mock JSON content only--no script. For the test, I'd like to be able to load the JSON file in and pump the object into the function I'm testing.
I know I can embed the JSON within a mock factory as described here: http://dailyjs.com/2013/05/16/angularjs-5/ but I really want the JSON to not be contained within script--just straight JSON files.
I've tried a few things but I'm fairly noob in this area. First, I set up my Karma to include my JSON file just to see what it would do:
files = [
...
'mock-data/**/*.json'
...
]
This resulted in:
Chrome 27.0 (Mac) ERROR
Uncaught SyntaxError: Unexpected token :
at /Users/aaron/p4workspace4/depot/sitecatalyst/branches/anomaly_detection/client/anomaly-detection/mock-data/two-metrics-with-anomalies.json:2
So then I changed it to just serve the files and not "include" them:
files = [
...
{ pattern: 'mock-data/**/*.json', included: false }
...
]
Now that they're only served, I thought I'd try to load in the file using $http from within my spec:
$http('mock-data/two-metrics-with-anomalies.json')
When I ran the spec I received:
Error: Unexpected request: GET mock-data/two-metrics-with-anomalies.json
Which in my understanding means it expects a mocked response from $httpBackend. So...at this point I didn't know how to load the file using Angular utilities so I thought I'd try jQuery to see if I could at least get that to work:
$.getJSON('mock-data/two-metrics-with-anomalies.json').done(function(data) {
console.log(data);
}).fail(function(response) {
console.log(response);
});
This results in:
Chrome 27.0 (Mac) LOG: { readyState: 4,
responseText: 'NOT FOUND',
status: 404,
statusText: 'Not Found' }
I inspect this request in Charles and it's making a request to
/mock-data/two-metrics-with-anomalies.json
Whereas the rest of the files I've configured to be "included" by Karma are being requested at, for example:
/base/src/app.js
Apparently Karma's setting up some sort of base directory to serve the files from. So for kicks I changed my jquery data request to
$.getJSON('base/mock-data/two-metrics-with-anomalies.json')...
And it works! But now I feel dirty and need to take a shower. Help me feel clean again.
Answer
I'm using an angular setup with angular seed. I ended up solving this with straight .json fixture files and jasmine-jquery.js. Others had alluded to this answer, but it took me a while to get all the pieces in the right place. I hope this helps someone else.
I have my json files in a folder /test/mock and my webapp is in /app.
my karma.conf.js has these entries (among others):
basePath: '../',
files: [
...
'test/vendor/jasmine-jquery.js',
'test/unit/**/*.js',
// fixtures
{pattern: 'test/mock/*.json', watched: true, served: true, included: false}
],
then my test file has:
describe('JobsCtrl', function(){
var $httpBackend, createController, scope;
beforeEach(inject(function ($injector, $rootScope, $controller) {
$httpBackend = $injector.get('$httpBackend');
jasmine.getJSONFixtures().fixturesPath='base/test/mock';
$httpBackend.whenGET('http://blahblahurl/resultset/').respond(
getJSONFixture('test_resultset_list.json')
);
scope = $rootScope.$new();
$controller('JobsCtrl', {'$scope': scope});
}));
it('should have some resultsets', function() {
$httpBackend.flush();
expect(scope.result_sets.length).toBe(59);
});
});
The real trick was the jasmine.getJSONFixtures().fixturesPath='base/test/mock';
I had originally set it to just test/mock but it needed the base in there.
Without the base, I got errors like this:
Error: JSONFixture could not be loaded: /test/mock/test_resultset_list.json (status: error, message: undefined)
at /Users/camd/gitspace/treeherder-ui/webapp/test/vendor/jasmine-jquery.js:295