AngularJS Protractor Tests - should E2E tests have fixtures?

Question

There are ton of questions asking how to mock http responses in protractor tests. How to do this is not the question, should we do this is the question.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Test_fixture#Software

I've been a QA Engineer for over 4 years, and most of my automated test experience deals with both low level (unit) tests of controllers, models, etc and high level (integration) tests of full systems. In my ruby world experience, we used Capybara for integration tests along with blueprint and factorygirl (for different projects) to create mock database entries. This was our integration/E2E testing.

I've only recently moved to a javascript team using AngularJS. The original built-in testing framework (now deprecated) had a mock Backend module which seemed suitable for our needs. Protractor is now the standard. Only after protractor gained steamed, have I heard the backlash of using fixtures for E2E testing. Many posts are pointing out that E2E testing should be testing the full stack, so any backends should not be mocked and be accessible.

Should integration tests use fixtures, and why?

Answer 1

There is a vocabulary problem here. What is called "e2e" testing in the Angular world has nothing to do with end-to-end testing. It is an end-to-end of the UI part only, which means no e2e test at all. It is UI testing.

Gojko Adzic, in "spec by example" book, recommands to do functional, fixture-based testing "below the skin of the application", i.e. without the UI part.

To answer your question :

-Should UI tests have fixture? No, use mocks or stubs

-Should Backend tests have fixture ? Yes