assertly

assertly

Assert class for BDD-style assertions.

Assertly was inspired by expect.js and implements almost the same interface. Some additional inspiration for assertions came from the Chai Assert and Chai BDD API's as well.

Assertly was created to address these shortcomings in expect.js:

• Add-ons
• Extensibility
• Integration
• Promises

Why Not Chai?

Chai pretty much has the above covered, but the somewhat common (and troubling) practice of using "dangling getters" is something I think should be avoided. While their use is not essential, it is, as mentioned, common practice. For example:

expect(x).to.be.null;  // dangling getter

IDE's and linters rightly warn that an expression like the above "has no side-effects" or "does nothing".

API

The Assertly API is based on BDD-style expectations. For example:

expect(x).to.be(2);

Where "x" is the "actual" value and 2 is the "expected" value. All things begin with the call to the expect method which returns an Assert instance.

This instance has properties (like to) that modify the conditions of the expectation (called "modifiers") and methods (like be) that test these conditions (called "assertions").

Assertions

An assertion is a method that is called to perform a test for truth. The most common assertion is be:

expect(x).to.be(y);  // compares x === y

Assertions can also be used as modifiers. Such usage, however, does not evaluate them for truthfulness. For example:

expect(x).to.be.above(2);

In this case, above is the assertion and be simply acts as a modifier.

Following are the supported assertions and their aliases ("aka" = "also known as").

• a (aka: "an")
• approx (aka: "approximately")
• be
• contain
• empty
• equal
• falsy
• greaterThan (aka: "above", "gt")
• greaterThanOrEqual (aka: "atLeast", "ge", "gte")
• in
• key (aka: "keys")
• length
• lessThan (aka: "below", "lt")
• lessThanOrEqual (aka: "atMost", "le", "lte")
• match
• nan (aka: "NaN")
• property
• same
• throw
• truthy (aka: "ok")
• within

Modifiers

Modifiers are simply words that decorate assertions. Their presence typically alters the evaluation of assertions but they can sometimes just serve as grammatical aids to make the code readable.

There is no required order to modifiers. The following are equivalent:

expect(x).to.not.be(2);
expect(x).not.to.be(2);

Below are the modifiers provided by Assertly itself.

not

The not modifier simply negates the result of the test. This is somewhat different then expect.js in some cases, but pure negation seems much more intuitive.

only

This modifier applies to keys and property assertions to restrict what is allowed to match the criteria. The only modifier restricts the assertion such that it will fail if other keys or properties are present.

own

The own modifier also applies to keys and property and restricts consideration to "own properties" (as in hasOwnProperty()).

All inherited properties are ignored when own is specified.

flatly

Used with equal and same to flatten the prototype chains of objects and compare all of the enumerable properties.

to

Serves only to aid readability.

Methods

Asserts can also provide methods. These methods look syntactically like assertions but do not evaluate truth claims. Instead they perform some more general operation.

Assertly provides these methods:

• get

Conjunctions

A conjunction is a word that can be used to create a new Assert instance based on a previous instance.

For example:

expect(x).to.be.above(2).and.below(10);

Assertly defines and by default.