Summarized notes on various types of tests developer should write and focus on unit testing with jest.
Various types of test and their purpose
Unit tests
- Verifies the functionality of a class or method.
- Test correctness of application logic.
- Tests can be written prior to application. (TDD)
Component Test
- Something more then just input and output test.
- Verifies the correct appearance and functioning of a component.
- Highly sensitive to small changes to underlying components and services.
- Provides a strong defense against regression.
- Verifies changes to component output in response to change in application state.
- Does not verify interactions between two components.
Snapshot Test
- Subtype of a component test.
- Verifies output matches a past record.
- Tends to fail if even the slightest change occurs.
- Good for regression.
Performance Test
- Measure how long a block of code takes to execute.
- Can ideltify bottlenecks in application performance.
- Can provide insight into performance differences on different devices and cloud hosts.
Coverage Tests
- A test for your tests.
- Measures application code which is visited (but not necessarily verified) during tests.
- Does not indicate whether application works or not, but it is nice to have.
End-to-end test
- Measures the functionality of the whole application.
- Often executed in a virtual or "headless" browser.
- Creates a scenario to test by simulating user actions.
- Different in nature and more difficult to write than other tests.
- Provide the best assurance that the application works.
Some important unit testing concepts
What is Mocking?
- A convicing duplicate of an object with no internal workings.
- Can be automatically or manually created.
- Has same API as original, but no side-effects.
- Spies and other mock features simplify testing.
Why Mocking?
- Reduce dependencies required by tests (faster execution).
- Prevent side-effects during testing.
- Build custom mocks to facilitate desired testing procedures.
Snapshot Testing
A good snapshot stops a moment from running away.
- JSON based record of a component's output.
- Compared to component's actual output during testing process.
- These snapshots are committed along with other modules and tests to the application repo
Advantages-
- Fast and automatic
- Catches regressions humans may miss
- Works nicely with libraries that take in state and output HTML components
- Adds some protections against regression when no time is available for manually writing tests
- Requires little training or knowledge of testing to use.
Disadvantages-
- Easy to ignore and suppress.
- Protects only against regression.
- If a component is working incorrectly and then fixed, a snapshot test will say it is now broken.
- Adds extra files to an already crowded repo.
- Sensitive to incidental changes.
- A waste of resources, if component is certain to be modified in near future.
Enzyme vs React Test Renderer
Neglecting to broaden their view has kept some people doing one thing all their lives. - Napolean Hill
| React Test Renderer | Enzyme |
|---|
| Takes a React component and outputs the resulting HTML without a DOM | Takes a React component and outputs the resulting HTML without a DOM |
| From the React team | From an unrelated, but respected team (AirBnB) |
| Useful for getting the output HTML of a component for snapshot testing | Useful for testing a variety of interactions including click, keyboard input, and more |
| Recommended by the Jest Team | Has a variety of open bugs which make using it a challenge |