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This repo shows you how to test React component. It is loosely based on Jack Franklin's article "Testing React Applications".

Demo

$ git clone https://github.com/ruanyf/react-testing-demo.git
$ cd react-testing-demo && npm install
$ npm start
$ open http://127.0.0.1:8080

Now, you visit http://127.0.0.1:8080/, and should see a Todo app.

There are 5 places to test.

  1. App's title should be "Todos"
  2. Initial state of a Todo item should be right ("done" or "undone")
  3. Click a Todo item, its state should be toggled (from "undone" to "done", or vice versa)
  4. Click a Delete button, the Todo item should be deleted
  5. Click the Add Todo button, a new Todo item should be added into the TodoList

All test cases have been written. You run npm test to find the test result.

$ npm test

Index

Testing Library

The most important tool of testing React is official Test Utilities, but it only provides low-level API. As a result, some third-party test libraries are built based on it. Airbnb's Enzyme library is the easiest one to use among them.

Thus every test case has at least two ways to write.

This repo will show you both of them.

React official Test Utilities

Since a component could be rendered into either a virtual DOM object (React.Component's instance) or a real DOM node, Test Utilities library gives you two testing choices.

Shallow Rendering

Shallow Rendering just renders a component "one level deep" without worrying about the behavior of child components, and returns a virtual DOM object. It does not require a DOM, since the component will not be mounted into DOM.

At first, import the Test Utilities in your test case script.

import TestUtils from 'react-addons-test-utils';

Then, write a Shallow Rendering function.

import TestUtils from 'react-addons-test-utils';

function shallowRender(Component) {
  const renderer = TestUtils.createRenderer();
  renderer.render(<Component/>);
  return renderer.getRenderOutput();
}

In the code above, we define a function shallowRender to return a component's shallow rendering.

The first test case is to test the title of App. It needn't interact with DOM and doesn't involve child-components, so is most suitable for use with shadow rendering.

describe('Shallow Rendering', function () {
  it('App\'s title should be Todos', function () {
    const app = shallowRender(App);
    expect(app.props.children[0].type).to.equal('h1');
    expect(app.props.children[0].props.children).to.equal('Todos');
  });
});

You may feel app.props.children[0].props.children intimidating, but it is not. Each virtual DOM object has a props.children property which contains its all children components. app.props.children[0] is the h1 element whose props.children is the text of h1.

The second test case is to test the initial state of a TodoItem is undone.

At first, we should modify the function shallowRender to accept second parameter.

import TestUtils from 'react-addons-test-utils';

function shallowRender(Component, props) {
  const renderer = TestUtils.createRenderer();
  renderer.render(<Component {...props}/>);
  return renderer.getRenderOutput();
}

The following is the test case.

import TodoItem from '../app/components/TodoItem';

describe('Shallow Rendering', function () {
  it('Todo item should not have todo-done class', function () {
    const todoItemData = { id: 0, name: 'Todo one', done: false };
    const todoItem = shallowRender(TodoItem, {todo: todoItemData});
    expect(todoItem.props.children[0].props.className.indexOf('todo-done')).to.equal(-1);
  });
});

In the code above, since TodoItem is a child component of App, we have to call shallowRender function with TodoItem, otherwise it will not be rendered. In our demo, if the state of a TodoItem is undone, the class property (props.className) contains no todo-done.

renderIntoDocument

The second testing choice of official Test Utilities is to render a React component into a real DOM node. renderIntoDocument method is used for this purpose.

import TestUtils from 'react-addons-test-utils';
import App from '../app/components/App';

const app = TestUtils.renderIntoDocument(<App/>);

renderIntoDocument method requires a DOM, otherwise throws an error. Before running the test case, DOM environment (includes window, document and navigator Object) should be available. So we use jsdom to implement the DOM environment.

import jsdom from 'jsdom';

if (typeof document === 'undefined') {
  global.document = jsdom.jsdom('<!doctype html><html><body></body></html>');
  global.window = document.defaultView;
  global.navigator = global.window.navigator;
}

We save the code above into test/setup.js. Then modify package.json.

{
  "scripts": {
    "test": "mocha --compilers js:babel-core/register --require ./test/setup.js",
  },
}

Now every time we run npm test, setup.js will be required into test script to run together.

The third test case is to test the delete button.

describe('DOM Rendering', function () {
  it('Click the delete button, the Todo item should be deleted', function () {
    const app = TestUtils.renderIntoDocument(<App/>);
    let todoItems = TestUtils.scryRenderedDOMComponentsWithTag(app, 'li');
    let todoLength = todoItems.length;
    let deleteButton = todoItems[0].querySelector('button');
    TestUtils.Simulate.click(deleteButton);
    let todoItemsAfterClick = TestUtils.scryRenderedDOMComponentsWithTag(app, 'li');
    expect(todoItemsAfterClick.length).to.equal(todoLength - 1);
  });
});

In the code above, first, scryRenderedDOMComponentsWithTag method finds all li elements of the app component. Next, get out todoItems[0] and find the delete button from it. Then use TestUtils.Simulate.click to simulate the click action upon it. Last, expect the new number of all li elements to be less one than the old number.

Test Utilities provides many methods to find DOM elements from a React component.

These methods are hard to spell. Luckily, we have another more concise ways to find DOM nodes from a React component.

findDOMNode

If a React component has been mounted into the DOM, react-dom module's findDOMNode method returns the corresponding native browser DOM element.

We use it to write the fourth test case. It is to test the toggle behavior when a user clicks the Todo item.

import {findDOMNode} from 'react-dom';

describe('DOM Rendering', function (done) {
  it('When click the Todo item，it should become done', function () {
    const app = TestUtils.renderIntoDocument(<App/>);
    const appDOM = findDOMNode(app);
    const todoItem = appDOM.querySelector('li:first-child span');
    let isDone = todoItem.classList.contains('todo-done');
    TestUtils.Simulate.click(todoItem);
    expect(todoItem.classList.contains('todo-done')).to.be.equal(!isDone);
  });
});

In the code above, findDOMNode method returns App's DOM node. Then we find out the first li element in it, and simulate a click action upon it. Last, we expect the todo-done class in todoItem.classList to toggle.

The fifth test case is to test adding a new Todo item.

describe('DOM Rendering', function (done) {
  it('Add an new Todo item, when click the new todo button', function () {
    const app = TestUtils.renderIntoDocument(<App/>);
    const appDOM = findDOMNode(app);
    let todoItemsLength = appDOM.querySelectorAll('.todo-text').length;
    let addInput = appDOM.querySelector('input');
    addInput.value = 'Todo four';
    let addButton = appDOM.querySelector('.add-todo button');
    TestUtils.Simulate.click(addButton);
    expect(appDOM.querySelectorAll('.todo-text').length).to.be.equal(todoItemsLength + 1);
  });
});

In the code above, at first, we find the input box and add a value into it. Then, we find the Add Todo button and simulate the click action upon it. Last, we expect the new Todo item to be appended into the Todo list.

Enzyme Library

Enzyme is a wrapper library of official Test Utilities, mimicking jQuery's API to provide an intuitive and flexible way to test React component.

It provides three ways to do the testing.

shallow

shallow is a wrapper of Test Utilities' shallow rendering.

The following is the first test case to test App's title.

import {shallow} from 'enzyme';

describe('Enzyme Shallow', function () {
  it('App\'s title should be Todos', function () {
    let app = shallow(<App/>);
    expect(app.find('h1').text()).to.equal('Todos');
  });
};

In the code above, shallow method returns the shallow rendering of App, and app.find method returns its h1 element, and text method returns the element's text.

Please keep in mind that .find method only supports simple selectors. When meeting complex selectors, it returns no results.

component.find('.my-class'); // by class name
component.find('#my-id'); // by id
component.find('td'); // by tag
component.find('div.custom-class'); // by compound selector
component.find(TableRow); // by constructor
component.find('TableRow'); // by display name

render

render is used to render React components to static HTML and analyze the resulting HTML structure. It returns a wrapper very similar to shallow; however, render uses a third party HTML parsing and traversal library Cheerio. This means it returns a CheerioWrapper.

The following is the second test case to test the initial state of Todo items.

import {render} from 'enzyme';

describe('Enzyme Render', function () {
  it('Todo item should not have todo-done class', function () {
    let app = render(<App/>);
    expect(app.find('.todo-done').length).to.equal(0);
  });
});

In the code above, you should see, no matter a ShallowWapper or a CheerioWrapper, Enzyme provides them with the same API (find method).

mount

mount is the method to mount your React component into a real DOM node.

The following is the third test case to test the delete button.

import {mount} from 'enzyme';

describe('Enzyme Mount', function () {
  it('Delete Todo', function () {
    let app = mount(<App/>);
    let todoLength = app.find('li').length;
    app.find('button.delete').at(0).simulate('click');
    expect(app.find('li').length).to.equal(todoLength - 1);
  });
});

In the code above, find method returns an object containing all eligible children components. at method returns the child component at the specified position and simulate method simulates some action upon it.

The following is the fourth test case to test the toggle behaviour of a Todo item.

import {mount} from 'enzyme';

describe('Enzyme Mount', function () {
  it('Turning a Todo item into Done', function () {
    let app = mount(<App/>);
    let todoItem = app.find('.todo-text').at(0);
    todoItem.simulate('click');
    expect(todoItem.hasClass('todo-done')).to.equal(true);
  });
});

The following is the fifth test case to test the Add Todo button.

import {mount} from 'enzyme';

describe('Enzyme Mount', function () {
  it('Add a new Todo', function () {
    let app = mount(<App/>);
    let todoLength = app.find('li').length;
    let addInput = app.find('input').get(0);
    addInput.value = 'Todo Four';
    app.find('.add-button').simulate('click');
    expect(app.find('li').length).to.equal(todoLength + 1);
  });
});

API List

The following is an incomplete list of Enzyme API. It should give you a general concept of Enzyme's usage.

Licence

MIT