In my last post I introduced a QUnit to JS Test Driver adapter, a small adapter which converts QUnit tests into native JS Test Driver tests.

This adapter is now part of the JS Test Driver project.

There is now a QUnit Adapter wiki page on the JS Test Driver project site. This will be updated to keep up with any changes to the adapter.

The code is now stored within the JS Test Driver subversion repository. You can always download the latest version of the QUnit Adapter using the Google Code web interface.

Thanks to Jeremie Lenfant-engelmann for deeming QUnit Adapter worthy of official regonition :)

In my previous post on QUnit and JS Test Driver I showed how to run your qunit tests with JS Test Driver.

The technique used was to run the tests with qunit, and report either their success or failure to JS Test Driver. This works, but you miss out on the important feedback of exactly which assertions have failed, and why.

This problem has led me to taking a new approach to running qunit tests with JS Test Driver, where I don’t use any of the existing qunit code, and instead just create an interface wrapper that converts qunit style tests and assertions directly into JS Test Driver tests and assertions.

This gives assertion level error reporting, making it much easier to write and debug tests. Essentially this adapter allows you to write native JS Test Driver tests, but using the less verbose qunit syntax.

The new approach also means that qunit lifecycles (setup and teardown) work.

Installing the QUnit Adapter

First up download the equiv.js file, which is required for the qunit same assertion.

Then download the QUnitAdapter.js file (or copy the code below).

QUnitAdapter.js

(function() {
 
    window.module = function(name, lifecycle) {
        QUnitTestCase = TestCase(name);
 
        if (lifecycle) {
            QUnitTestCase.prototype.setUp = lifecycle.setup;
            QUnitTestCase.prototype.tearDown = lifecycle.teardown;
        }
    };
 
    window.test = function(name, test) {
        QUnitTestCase.prototype['test ' + name] = test;
    };
 
    window.expect = function(count) {
        expectAsserts(count);
    };
 
    window.ok = function(actual, msg) {
        assertTrue(msg ? msg : '', actual);
    };
 
    window.equals = function(a, b, msg) {
        assertEquals(msg ? msg : '', b, a);
    };
 
    window.start = window.stop = function() {
        fail('start and stop methods are not available when using JS Test Driver.\n' +
            'Use jsUnit Clock object to deal with timeouts and intervals:\n' + 
            'http://googletesting.blogspot.com/2007/03/javascript-simulating-time-in-jsunit.html.');
    };
 
    window.same = function(a, b, msg) {
        assertTrue(msg ? msg : '', window.equiv(b, a));
    };
 
    window.reset = function() {
    	fail('reset method is not available when using JS Test Driver');
    };
 
    window.isLocal = function() {
    	return false;
    };
 
    window.QUnit = {
    	equiv: window.equiv,
    	ok: window.ok
    };
 
})();

Save both these files to your project (for example tests/qunit/).

Configuring JS Test Driver

To run your qunit tests in JS Test Driver you need to configure it to load the adapter before your qunit tests.

Update your jsTestDriver.conf to load the files:

server: http://localhost:9876
 
load:
  # Add these lines to load the equiv function and adapter in order, before the tests
  # (assuming they are saved to tests/qunit/)
  - tests/qunit/equiv.js
  - tests/qunit/QUnitAdapter.js
 
  # This is where we load the qunit tests
  - tests/js/*.js
 
  # And this loads the source files we are testing
  - src/js/*.js

Running JS Test Driver with qunit tests

Now we can run JS Test Driver and watch as it runs all our qunit tests!

The tests will run as individual JS Test Driver tests, with the format Module Name.Test Name.

Example output:

[PASSED] Module 1.test Test 1
[PASSED] Module 1.test Test 2
[PASSED] Module 2.test Test 1
Total 3 tests (Passed: 3; Fails: 0; Errors: 0) (1.00 ms)
  Safari 530.18: Run 3 tests (Passed: 3; Fails: 0; Errors 0) (1.00 ms)

Limitations

There are a few limitations on which qunit tests will successfully be converted.

The tests must run synchronously (which means no use of the qunit stop and start methods).

If you need to test timeouts, intervals, or other asynchronous sections of code, consider using the jsUnit Clock object to deal with timeouts and intervals.

QUnit DOM support is not included. Consider avoiding interacting directly with the browser within your unit tests. But if you do need to, you’ll need to create and remove the DOM objects yourself with each test, or the setup and teardown methods.

I was very impressed by the new Google JS Test Driver project, which provides a blisteringly fast, and easily automated way of running your Javascript unit tests. See this introduction to JS Test Driver by Miško Hevery for a great overview.

I previously described how to run JS Test Driver automatically with Autotest.

But I have an existing project that uses the jQuery testing framework qunit for testing. I didn’t really fancy rewriting 300+ tests just so I could use the JS Test Driver framework.

So I wrote a converter that automatically converts qunit modules and tests into JS Test Driver TestCases and test methods.

Download Converter and Patched Testrunner

In order to convert from qunit tests I’ve had to add a few extra hooks into the qunit testrunner.js file.

Either download the patched testrunner.js file, or just add the 3 lines below:

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    QUnit: {
        // Add the following 3 lines 
        runTest: runTest,
        config: config,
        validTest: validTest,	
 
        // This is existing code	
        equiv: equiv,
        ok: ok,
        done: function(failures, total){},
        log: function(result, message){}
    },

Next download QUnitToTestCases.js and save it to the same folder as testrunner.js. This is the file which converts the qunit tests into TestCases that JS Test Driver understands.

It works by overriding the qunit test() function, and rather than adding the test to qunit, it creates a test method on a TestCase object which, when called by JS Test Driver adds the test to qunit and runs it.

Configuring JS Test Driver

Once you have the patched testrunner.js and QUnitToTestCases.js, you just need to let JS Test Driver know to load them before your qunit tests. They need to be loaded in order, with testrunner.js first, followed by QUnitTiTestCases.js, as the converter modifies some of the testrunner methods.

Update your jsTestDriver.conf to load the files:

server: http://localhost:9876
 
load:
  # Add these lines to load the testrunner and converter in order, before the tests
  # (assuming the files are saved to tests/qunit/)
  - tests/qunit/testrunner.js
  - tests/qunit/QUnitToTestCases.js
 
  # This is where we load the qunit tests
  - tests/js/*.js
 
  # And this loads the source files we are testing
  - src/js/*.js

Running JS Test Driver with qunit tests

Now we can run JS Test Driver and watch as it runs all our qunit tests!

The tests will run as individual JS Test Driver tests, with the format Module Name.Test Name.

Example output:

[PASSED] Module 1.test Test 1
[PASSED] Module 1.test Test 2
[PASSED] Module 2.test Test 1
Total 3 tests (Passed: 3; Fails: 0; Errors: 0) (1.00 ms)
  Safari 530.18: Run 3 tests (Passed: 3; Fails: 0; Errors 0) (1.00 ms)

Limitations

There are a few limitations on which qunit tests will successfully be converted.

The tests must run synchronously (which means no use of the qunit stop and start methods).

Module lifecycles are ignored at the moment, which means setup and teardown functions are not called.

Google recently released a new Javascript testing framework, JS Test Driver. It provides incredibly fast execution for Javascript unit tests, and can be run from the command line without the need for manual control of browsers. Check out this introduction to JS Test Driver by Miško Hevery.

Fast test execution and the ability to be run from the command line make it a perfect fit to integrate into the Autotest test cycle. So I have.

The module below hooks into Autotest just before the normal tests are run. It runs JS Test Driver over all the tests in the project, outputs the results, and finally fires off a :ran_js_test_driver hook.

Errors and failed tests will automatically be notified through Growl (if Growl and autotest-growl are installed). By default successful tests runs are not notified through Growl, in order to keep distracting popups to a minimum.

Installing Autotest JS Test Driver

First you need to download a copy of JS Test Driver.

Save the JS Test Driver jar file to the lib/ directory within your project.

Then copy the code below to lib/autotest/js-test-driver.rb

js-test-driver.rb

# Run JS Test Driver as part of autotest
# Supports Growl notifications if using autotest-growl
 
require 'autotest'
 
module Autotest::JsTestDriver
 
    @@jar = File.dirname(__FILE__) + '/JsTestDriver-1.0b.jar'
    @@config_file = 'jsTestDriver.conf'
 
    def self.jar=(string)
        @@jar = string
    end
 
    def self.config_file=(string)
        @@config_file = string
    end
 
    def self.show_success=(bool)
        @@show_success=bool
    end
 
 
    Autotest.add_hook :run_command do |at|
        # run js test driver
        results = 'JS Test Driver:'
        results += `java -jar "#{@@jar}" --config "#{@@config_file}" --tests all --verbose`
        puts results
 
        at.results = [] if at.results.nil?
        at.results.concat(results.split("\n"))
 
        at.hook :ran_js_test_driver
 
    end
 
end
 
module Autotest::Growl
 
    @@show_js_test_success = false
 
    def self.show_js_test_success=(bool)
        @@show_js_test_success=bool
    end
 
  # Growl results of JS Test Driver
  Autotest.add_hook :ran_js_test_driver do |autotest|
 
    gist = autotest.results.grep( /Total\s+\d+\s+tests/ ).join(" / ").strip()
 
    if gist == ''
      growl @label + 'Cannot run JS Test Driver.', gist, 'error'
    else
      if gist =~ /Errors:\s+[1-9]\d*/
        growl @label + 'Error running some JS tests.', gist, 'failed'
      elsif gist =~ /Fails:\s+[1-9]\d*/
        growl @label + 'JS Test: Some tests failed.', gist, 'failed'
      elsif @@show_js_test_success
        growl @label + 'JS Test: All files are clean.', gist, 'passed'
      end
    end
    false
  end
 
end

Configuring Autotest and JS Test Driver

JS Test Driver uses a configuration file to connect with the JS Test Driver server, and to decide which javscript files to load.

Create a jsTestDriver.conf file in the project root directory as follows.

server: http://localhost:9876
 
load:
  - src/js/*.js
  - tests/js/*.js

This assumes that you have our javascript source files will be in the src/js/ directory, and our javascript test files will be in the src/js/ directory. We will create a test file, and associated code later.

The server: lets JS Test Driver know we will be connecting to a server on our local machine, on port 9876. We’ll get this server running later.

Next we need to configure Autotest to run JS Test Driver, by requiring the module and specifying the location of the JS Test Driver jar.

# Require the JS Test Driver module
require 'lib/autotest/js-test-driver'
 
# Set the location of the JS Test Driver jar
Autotest::JsTestDriver::jar = './lib/jsTestDriver-1.0b.jar'

You can also configure the location of the JS Test Driver config file, and whether or not to show successful test runs.

# Uncomment this if you have autotest-growl, and Growl installed
# And want to have notifications of JS Test Driver runs
# require 'autotest/growl'
 
# Uncomment this to change the location of the JS Test Driver config file
# By default we look for a jsTestDriver.conf file in the directory autotest is run from 
# Autotest::JsTestDriver::config_file = './jsTestDriver.conf'
 
# Uncomment this to show successful test runs
# Autotest::Growl::show_js_test_success = true

Now that all the installation and configuration is done, let get everything running.

Running Autotest with JS Test Driver

First up we need to get our JS Test Driver server up and running. Open a Terminal, and navigate to the directory containing the JS Test Driver jar. Run the following to start a server:

java -jar JsTestDriver-1.0b.jar --port 9876

Now we need to capture a browser to use for testing. Open a browser and automatically capture it for use with JS Test Driver by going to the following URL:

http://localhost:9876/capture

Now we can run autotest, and watch as it runs JS Test Driver and reports the results to us on every file change:

autotest

JS Test Driver will probably report that no tests were run, as we haven’t written any tests yet. Tests are written using the TestCase object, which exposes JUnit style functionality.

Writing Some Tests

Here is an example test file, and the production code it tests:

GreeterTest.js

GreeterTest = TestCase("GreeterTest");
 
GreeterTest.prototype.testGreet = function() {
  var greeter = new myapp.Greeter();
  assertEquals("Hello World.", greeter.greet("World"));
};

Greeter.js

myapp = {};
 
myapp.Greeter = function() { };
 
myapp.Greeter.prototype.greet = function(name) {
  return "Hello " + name + "!";
};

If you copy these to your tests/js/ and src/js/ directories respectively, Autotest should pick up the new files, run the tests and notify you that there is an error. See if you can spot it :P

To Do

This would be nice packaged up as a gem. It would also be nice if failed Javascript tests could stop further tests being run.

As well as using Autotest to run Cucumber scenarios I have also been looking into integrating lower level test into the Autotest cycle.

My first attempt at this is a small module to run Javascript Lint on all the javascript files within a project any time any file changes.

The module below hooks in to Autotest just before the tests are normally run. It runs javascript lint over all the *.js files in the project, outputs the results to the autotest results object and the standard output, and finally fires a new ran_javascript_lint hook

Errors and warnings found by Javascript Lint will also be notified through Growl (if Growl and autotest-growl are installed). If there are no errors or warnings than no Growl notification is shown. This keeps distracting popups to a minimum.

Installing Autotest Javascript Lint

First up, download Javascript Lint. Extract the jsl executable to lib/autotest/ within your project.

Copy the code below to lib/autotest/javascript-lint.rb within your project (the same directory where you have the jsl execuatable).

javascript-lint.rb

# Run Javascript Lint as part of autotest
# Supports Growl notifications if using autotest-growl
#
# Version 1.0
 
require 'autotest'
 
module Autotest::JavascriptLint
    @@js_dir = ''
    @@jsl_dir = File.dirname(__FILE__) + '/'
    @@config_file = ''
 
    def self.js_dir=(string)
        @@js_dir = string
    end
 
    def self.jsl_dir=(string)
        @@jsl_dir = string
    end
 
    def self.config_file=(string)
        @@config_file = string
    end
 
    Autotest.add_hook :run_command do |at|
 
        # run javascript lint
        results = `#{@@jsl_dir}jsl -conf "#{@@config_file}"  -process "#{@@js_dir}*.js" +recurse`
        puts results
 
        at.results = [] if at.results.nil?
        at.results.concat(results.split("\n"))
 
        at.hook :ran_javascript_lint
    end
 
end
 
module Autotest::Growl
 
    @@show_js_lint_success = false
 
    def self.show_js_lint_success=(bool)
        @@show_js_lint_success=bool
    end
 
    # Growl results of Javscript Lint
    Autotest.add_hook :ran_javascript_lint do |autotest|
        gist = autotest.results.grep(/\d+\s+error.*,\s+\d+\s+warning.*/).join(" / ").strip()
 
        if gist == ''
            growl @label + 'Cannot run javascript lint.', '', 'error'
        else
            if gist =~ /[1-9]\d*\s+(error)/
                growl @label + 'Lint: Some files have errors.', gist, 'failed'
            elsif gist =~ /[1-9]\d*\s+(warning)/
                growl @label + 'Lint: Some files have warnings.', gist, 'pending'
            elsif @@show_js_lint_success
                growl @label + 'Lint: All files are clean.', gist, 'passed'
            end
        end
        false
    end
 
end

Then add Autotest Javascript Lint to your .autotest configuration file within the base of your project.

require 'lib/autotest/javascript-lint'

To Do

This could be packaged as a gem for easy installation, and it could possibly be modified to only run over changed files.