What is @testing-library/react-hooks?
The @testing-library/react-hooks package is designed to facilitate the testing of custom React hooks. It provides a simple and complete set of utilities that work well with the React Testing Library ecosystem. With this package, you can render hooks in isolation without having to deal with components, and you can test their behavior, state changes, and side effects.
What are @testing-library/react-hooks's main functionalities?
Rendering hooks and testing their initial state
This feature allows you to render a custom hook and assert its initial state. The `renderHook` function is used to render the hook, and the `result` object is used to access the hook's return values.
import { renderHook } from '@testing-library/react-hooks';
function useCustomHook() {
const [value, setValue] = useState(0);
return { value, setValue };
}
test('should start with initial value', () => {
const { result } = renderHook(() => useCustomHook());
expect(result.current.value).toBe(0);
});
Testing hook updates
This feature allows you to test the updates of a hook's state. The `act` function is used to wrap any code that triggers updates to the hook.
import { renderHook, act } from '@testing-library/react-hooks';
function useCounter() {
const [count, setCount] = useState(0);
return { count, increment: () => setCount(c => c + 1) };
}
test('should increment counter', () => {
const { result } = renderHook(() => useCounter());
act(() => {
result.current.increment();
});
expect(result.current.count).toBe(1);
});
Testing asynchronous hooks
This feature is for testing hooks that have asynchronous operations, such as data fetching. The `waitForNextUpdate` function is used to wait for the hook to update after the asynchronous operation.
import { renderHook } from '@testing-library/react-hooks';
function useFetch(url) {
const [data, setData] = useState(null);
useEffect(() => {
fetch(url).then(response => response.json()).then(setData);
}, [url]);
return data;
}
test('should fetch data', async () => {
const { result, waitForNextUpdate } = renderHook(() => useFetch('https://api.example.com/data'));
await waitForNextUpdate();
expect(result.current).not.toBeNull();
});
Other packages similar to @testing-library/react-hooks
enzyme
Enzyme is a JavaScript testing utility for React that makes it easier to assert, manipulate, and traverse your React Components' output. It does not provide a dedicated API for testing hooks in isolation, which is a key difference from @testing-library/react-hooks.
react-test-renderer
React Test Renderer is an official React package that provides a renderer that can be used to render React components to pure JavaScript objects, without depending on the DOM or a native mobile environment. It is more general-purpose compared to @testing-library/react-hooks, which is specifically tailored for testing React hooks.
react-hooks-testing-library
Simple and complete React hooks testing utilities that encourage good testing practices.
Read The Docs
A Note about React 18 Support
As part of the changes for React 18, it has been decided that the renderHook
API provided by this
library will instead be included as official additions to both react-testing-library
(PR) and
react-native-testing-library
(PR) with the intention being
to provide a more cohesive and consistent implementation for our users.
Please be patient as we finalise these changes in the respective testing libraries.
In the mean time you can install @testing-library/react@^13.1
Table of Contents
The problem
You're writing an awesome custom hook and you want to test it, but as soon as you call it you see
the following error:
Invariant Violation: Hooks can only be called inside the body of a function component.
You don't really want to write a component solely for testing this hook and have to work out how you
were going to trigger all the various ways the hook can be updated, especially given the
complexities of how you've wired the whole thing together.
The solution
The react-hooks-testing-library
allows you to create a simple test harness for React hooks that
handles running them within the body of a function component, as well as providing various useful
utility functions for updating the inputs and retrieving the outputs of your amazing custom hook.
This library aims to provide a testing experience as close as possible to natively using your hook
from within a real component.
Using this library, you do not have to concern yourself with how to construct, render or interact
with the react component in order to test your hook. You can just use the hook directly and assert
the results.
When to use this library
- You're writing a library with one or more custom hooks that are not directly tied to a component
- You have a complex hook that is difficult to test through component interactions
When not to use this library
- Your hook is defined alongside a component and is only used there
- Your hook is easy to test by just testing the components using it
Example
useCounter.js
import { useState, useCallback } from 'react'
function useCounter() {
const [count, setCount] = useState(0)
const increment = useCallback(() => setCount((x) => x + 1), [])
return { count, increment }
}
export default useCounter
useCounter.test.js
import { renderHook, act } from '@testing-library/react-hooks'
import useCounter from './useCounter'
test('should increment counter', () => {
const { result } = renderHook(() => useCounter())
act(() => {
result.current.increment()
})
expect(result.current.count).toBe(1)
})
More advanced usage can be found in the
documentation.
Installation
npm install --save-dev @testing-library/react-hooks
Peer Dependencies
react-hooks-testing-library
does not come bundled with a version of
react
to allow you to install the specific version you want
to test against. It also does not come installed with a specific renderer, we currently support
react-test-renderer
and
react-dom
. You only need to install one of them,
however, if you do have both installed, we will use react-test-renderer
as the default. For more
information see the
installation docs. Generally, the
installed versions for react
and the selected renderer should have matching versions:
npm install react@^16.9.0
npm install --save-dev react-test-renderer@^16.9.0
NOTE: The minimum supported version of react
, react-test-renderer
and react-dom
is
^16.9.0
.
API
See the API reference.
Contributors
Thanks goes to these wonderful people (emoji key):
This project follows the all-contributors specification.
Contributions of any kind welcome!
Issues
Looking to contribute? Look for the
Good First Issue
label.
π Bugs
Please file an issue for bugs, missing documentation, or unexpected behavior.
See Bugs
π‘ Feature Requests
Please file an issue to suggest new features. Vote on feature requests by adding a π. This helps
maintainers prioritize what to work on.
See Feature Requests
β Questions
For questions related to using the library, you can
raise issue here, or
visit a support community:
LICENSE
MIT