Goblin

A Mocha like BDD testing framework written in Go that requires no additional dependencies. Requires no extensive documentation nor complicated steps to get it running.

Why Goblin?
Inspired by the flexibility and simplicity of Node BDD and frustrated by the
rigorousness of Go way of testing, we wanted to bring a new tool to
write self-describing and comprehensive code.
What do I get with it?
- Run tests as usual with
go test
- Colorful reports and beautiful syntax
- Preserve the exact same syntax and behaviour as Node's Mocha
- Nest as many
Describe
and It
blocks as you want
- Use
Before
, BeforeEach
, After
and AfterEach
for setup and teardown your tests
- Use
Skip
, SkipIf
, and Resume
to selectively skip tests
- No need to remember confusing parameters in
Describe
and It
blocks
- Use a declarative and expressive language to write your tests
- Plug different assertion libraries
- Gomega (supported so far)
- Skip your tests the same way as you would do in Mocha
- Automatic terminal support for colored outputs
- Two line setup is all you need to get up running
How do I use it?
Since go test
is not currently extensive, you will have to hook Goblin to it. You do that by
adding a single test method in your test file. All your goblin tests will be implemented inside this function.
package foobar
import (
"testing"
. "github.com/franela/goblin"
)
func Test(t *testing.T) {
g := Goblin(t)
g.Describe("Numbers", func() {
g.It("Should add two numbers ", func() {
g.Assert(1+1).Equal(2)
})
g.It("Should match equal numbers", func() {
g.Assert(2).Equal(4)
})
g.It("Should substract two numbers")
g.Xit("Should add two numbers ", func() {
g.Assert(3+1).Equal(4)
})
})
}
Ouput will be something like:

Nice and easy, right?
Can I do asynchronous tests?
Yes! Goblin will help you to test asynchronous things, like goroutines, etc. You just need to add a done
parameter to the handler function of your It
. This handler function should be called when your test passes.
...
g.Describe("Numbers", func() {
g.It("Should add two numbers asynchronously", func(done Done) {
go func() {
g.Assert(1+1).Equal(2)
done()
}()
})
})
...
Goblin will wait for the done
call, a Fail
call or any false assertion.
How do I use it with Gomega?
Gomega is a nice assertion framework. But it doesn't provide a nice way to hook it to testing frameworks. It should just panic instead of requiring a fail function. There is an issue about that here.
While this is being discussed and hopefully fixed, the way to use Gomega with Goblin is:
package foobar
import (
"testing"
goblin "github.com/franela/goblin"
. "github.com/onsi/gomega"
)
func Test(t *testing.T) {
g := goblin.Goblin(t)
RegisterFailHandler(func(m string, _ ...int) { g.Fail(m) })
g.Describe("lala", func() {
g.It("lslslslsls", func() {
Expect(1).To(Equal(10))
})
})
}
How do I skip tests?
Goblin provides several different methods of marking tests to be skipped.
g.Xit("test name", ...)
- excludes a single test from running
g.Skip("test name", ...)
- alias for Xit
g.Skip()
- when called without arguments, skips all following tests until
Resume is called, or end of the Describe block is reached
g.Resume()
- stops skipping remaining tests
g.SkipIf(...)
- skips all following tests if all passed args can be coerced
to true
(ish), also can take func () bool
as an argument
If all the tests within a suite are skipped, the Before
, After
, etc., hooks
will not be run, which is convenient for suites that conditionally skip based on
availability of external services.
package foobar
import (
"testing"
. "github.com/franela/goblin"
)
func Test(t *testing.T) {
g := Goblin(t)
g.Describe("Numbers", func() {
g.SkipIf(func () {
return os.Getenv("SKIP_NUMBERS") != ""
})
g.Xit("Should add two numbers ", func() {
g.Assert(1+1).Equal(2)
})
g.Skip("Should match equal numbers", func() {
g.Assert(2).Equal(4)
})
g.Skip()
g.It("Should substract two numbers", func (){
g.Assert(4-2).Equal(2)
})
g.Resume()
g.It("Should add two numbers ", func() {
g.Assert(3+1).Equal(4)
})
})
}
FAQ
How do I run specific tests?
If -goblin.run=$REGES
is supplied to the go test
command then only tests that match the supplied regex will run
Contributing
We do have a couple of issues pending. Feel free to contribute and send us PRs (with tests please :smile:).
Special Thanks
Special thanks to Leandro Reox (Leitan) for the goblin logo.