oojspec

oojspec - Object-oriented client-side testing

oojspec is a test runner built on top of Buster.js, focused on integration tests. It is also a Rails engine, although you can use it in non-Rails applications - more on that in a later topic.

It uses the same assertions and reporter and you can choose between expectations and assertions style on your examples or even mix them up.

This is heavily inspired by another beloved tool called RSpec, and also takes some inspiration from Jasmine and Buster.

I really prefer writing expectations instead of assertions because I think it reads better. But on the other hand I find expectations an overkill for things like:

expect(seats.length).toBeTruthy()

I'd rather prefer to write:

assert(seats.length)

For a more in-depth introduction, please check-out this article.

Examples

Here is how it looks like (yeah, I know it is failing - it is on purpose so that you can see how the report looks like).

Feel free to explore it in jsfiddle:

• JavaScript example with test runner
• JavaScript example without test runner
• CoffeeScript example with test runner
• CoffeeScript example without test runner

Or some object-oriented approach:

• JavaScript OO approach
• CoffeeScript OO approach

And finally a more complete suite demonstrating lots of the features available. This was extracted from the test application and is expected to fail. The result should be the same as the first example of this section, hosted on Heroku.

Is it production ready?

It should be, but its API is certainly going to change a lot before it becomes stable.

So I wouldn't advise you to write tons of tests with oojspec because you might have to rewrite them in the future when the API changes.

On the other side, I'll be using it myself in my own projects, replacing my Jasmine specs.

Where are its tests?

I'm still not sure on how to properly test it. For the time being, I'm writing some examples in a separate project.

Why not just using Buster.js (or Jasmine.js)?

Jasmine.js doesn't support beforeAll/afterAll and that was the main motivation I started to develop another test runner. But let's be honest, I didn't want to maintain all expectations/assertions by myself. Also I didn't want to worry about the reporter. I just wanted to focus on the runner itself.

Mocha/Chai seemed a great alternative but I had to support older Internet Explorer in my application while the syntax of Chai required a feature not supported by those browsers.

Then I've heard about this excellent testing tool called Buster.js. It supported beforeAll/afterAll just like Mocha but it didn't give any guarantees about the order of execution of the tests and I needed that guarantee for some integration tests.

But on the other side it is pretty modular and I would be able to take advantage of their assertions and expectations syntax as well as its reporter (although I had to change it a bit so that it fit my taste).

As Buster.js allowed me to focus on the runner itself I decided to begin this new project.

Also I took the chance to do things the correct way in my opinion. I don't like the fact that most test runners (all of them?) will publish describe, it, waitsFor etc. independently from the context.

In contrast oojspec will only export describe. The other allowed features will be available depending on the context. Inside a description example, specify, it, xit, pending and describe will be available. Inside an example expect, assert, waitsFor and runs will be available.

Custom events

Oojspec supports custom events as well since v0.1.0 in case you want to notify and listen to custom events:

oojspec.on 'my-suite-start', (opts)-> console.log 'suite has started', opts
oojspec.on 'my-suite-end', -> console.log 'suite has ended'
oojspec.notify 'my-suite-start', option1: 1, option2: 'any'
oojspec.describe 'some description', -> @example 'it passes', -> @console.log 'suite is running'
oojspec.notify 'my-suite-end'

# this will log 'suite has started', {option1: 1, option2: 'any'},
    'suite is running' and finally 'suite has ended'

CoffeeScript?! Really?!

JavaScript?! Really?!

This is me who is writing this runner and I dislike JavaScript, so please keep your preferences for you. I won't change to pure JavaScript. Period.

Can I test my JavaScript code with oojspec despite it being written in CS?

Of course. Why are you asking me that?

On the other hand I'd advise you to write your examples in CoffeeScript for brevity.

JavaScript example:

oojspec.describe('Some description', function(){
  this.example('Some example', function(){
    this.assert(true)
  })
});

CoffeeScript version:

oojspec.describe 'Some description', ->
  @example 'Some example', -> @assert true

Alternatively, you can use some shortcut to this if you're using JavaScript:

oojspec.describe('Some description', function(s){
  s.example('Some example', function(s){
    s.assert(true)
  })
});

But I'm not sure if this API will remain supported in the future although I don't currently have any plans to change it.

Usage with Rails

oojspec is also a Rails engine built on top of rails-sandbox-assets.

It takes advantage of the Rails asset pipeline to run your specs. To launch the runner, after including oojspec to your Gemfile, run rake sandbox_assets:serve.

It will load all your specs inside (spec|test)/javascripts/oojspec/ named *_spec.js[.coffee] or *_test.js[.coffee]. Then run the examples by accessing http://localhost:5000/oojspec.

If you want to put your specs directly on spec/javascripts, add this to your application.rb:

config.sandbox_assets.template = 'oojspec/runner'
config.sandbox_assets.iframe_template = 'oojspec/iframe'

Then you'll be able to run the specs by directly accessing http://localhost:5000.

By default this gem will expose oojspec.describe to the window object so that you can write it directly from the top-level, but you can disable this exposition if you prefer:

config.sandbox_assets.options[:skip_oojspec_expose] = true

What about non-Rails applications?

There are two ways you can use oojspec with non-Rails applications.

If you want to take advantage of the Rails asset pipeline, here is an example on how to integrate the rails-sandbox-assets gem (and consequently this one) to your non-Rails application.

It is target to the oojs gem that is currently built on top of rails_sandbox_jasmine but this is going to change and oojs will be built on top of oojspec in the future. But you can currently just add both gems right now and ignore the Jasmine runner while I don't change oojs.

The other approach is to compile the source (possibly in the Try CoffeeScript page) and write your own custom runner HTML. Just take the template provided by this gem as an example on how to write it.

Alternatively you can take a look at the jsfiddle demos from the Examples section.

Plans for the future

There are so many but I'm not sure how long it will take to implement all of the intended features in my spare time.

I'd like to support given-and-when-and-then-and style specs at some point.

But I wanted to have some initial working version published soon before someone register an oojspec gem before me! :)

Contributing

I'd love to hear your opinions on the API and design of oojspec and of course contributions will be very welcome if they're aligned with this project goals.

Enjoy! :)