Automated API testing with nodejs

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We are going automate the api testing as much as possible, and potentially make it separate from the app in development.

Tools

Mocha: Mocha is a javascript testing framework that makes asynchronous testing easy.
Chai: Unlike Jasmine, an additional assertion library must be used to supplement Mocha
SuperTest: SuperTest is an extension of SuperAgent, a lightweight HTTP AJAX request library

App starter

Following is the basic packages needed for run this project, you can add individual modules too

{
  "name": "node-api-testing",
  "version": "1.0.0",
  "description": "API Testing",
  "devDependencies": {
    "chai": "^4.2.0",
    "faker": "^4.1.0",
    "mocha": "^6.2.1",
    "supertest": "^4.0.2"
  },
  "scripts": {
    "prestart": "npm install;",
    "start": "mocha --timeout 25000 --colors"
  }
}

To install modules individually use yarn add chai mocha supertest --dev. Make sure that you have mocha installed globally. Run yarn global add mocha

Install all the dependencies using yarn or yarn install

Create tests

Create your test folder in the project root run mkdir test

The directory must be called test for Mocha to find test files to run.

for the test we are following a naming pattern like [controller]_test.js you can create your own.

let should = require('chai').should(),
  expect = require('chai').expect,
  supertest = require('supertest'),
  api = supertest('http://127.0.0.0:3000'),
  faker = require('faker')

let tokenSymbol = faker.lorem.word()
let result

describe('Token', function () {
  before(function (done) {
    api
      .post('/api/tokens')
      .set('Accept', 'application/x-www-form-urlencoded')
      .send({
        name: faker.name.findName(),
        symbol: tokenSymbol,
        owner: faker.lorem.word(),
        userId: faker.random.uuid(),
        txHash: faker.lorem.word()
      })
      .expect('Content-Type', /json/)
      .expect(200)
      .end(function (err, res) {
        done()
      })
  })

  it('should return a 200 response', function (done) {
    api
      .get(`/api/tokens/${tokenSymbol}`)
      .set('Accept', 'application/json')
      .expect(200, done)
  })

  it('should return a 400 response', function (done) {
    api
      .get('/api/tokens/hello')
      .set('Accept', 'application/json')
      .expect(400, done)
  })
})

The above code is pretty self explanatory, however we will go through it line by line;

Running tests

Running test is easy as running yarn run test or yarn test. Make sure the api project is running and you have given correct path in the test file.

Code breakdown

1. Require and initiate modules

let should = require('chai').should(),
  expect = require('chai').expect,
  supertest = require('supertest'),
  api = supertest('http://127.0.0.0:3000'),
  faker = require('faker')

2. Initialize any variable that we may want to reuse

let tokenSymbol = faker.lorem.word()
let result

3. Require and initiate modules

describe('Token', function() {
  ...

This will appear as a heading for the tests, we named it as Token.

3. Preparing the test cases

before(function (done) {
  api
    .post('/api/tokens')
    .set('Accept', 'application/x-www-form-urlencoded')
    .send({
      name: faker.name.findName(),
      symbol: tokenSymbol,
      owner: faker.lorem.word(),
      userId: faker.random.uuid(),
      txHash: faker.lorem.word()
    })
    .expect('Content-Type', /json/)
    .expect(200)
    .end(function (err, res) {
      result = res
      done()
    })
})

Here we are telling mocha to create a post request to an endpoint named /api/tokens and creating some data using it. And we are saving the response in a variable called result. This variable can be used to test against possible errors and structure validation using hapijs/joi or similar.

4. Testing http codes

it('should return a 200 response', function (done) {
  api
    .get(`/api/tokens/${tokenSymbol}`)
    .set('Accept', 'application/json')
    .expect(200, done)
})

and

it('should return a 400 response', function (done) {
  api
    .get('/api/tokens/hello')
    .set('Accept', 'application/json')
    .expect(400, done)
})

This article originally appeared on lightrains.com

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