How to mock a constructor like new Date()

Question

I have a method which depends on new Date to create a date object and then manipulates it. I'm testing that the manipulation works as expected, so I need to compare the returned date with expected date. In order to do that I need to make sure that new Date returns the same value in the test and in the method being tested. How can I do that?

Is there a way to actually mock the return value of a constructor function?

I could create a module that can be required with a function that provides a date object and can be mocked. But that seems like an unnecessary abstraction in my code.

an example function to be tested...

module.exports = {   sameTimeTomorrow: function(){     var dt = new Date();         dt.setDate(dt + 1);     return dt;   } }; 

how do I mock the return value of new Date()?

Answer 1

Since jest 26, you can use the 'modern' fakeTimers implementation (see article here) wich supports the method jest.setSystemTime.

beforeAll(() => {     jest.useFakeTimers('modern');     jest.setSystemTime(new Date(2020, 3, 1)); });  afterAll(() => {     jest.useRealTimers(); }); 

Note that 'modern' will be the default implementation from jest version 27.

See documentation for setSystemTime here.

Answer 2

Update: this answer is the approach for jest < version 26 see this answer for recent jest versions.

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You can mock a constructor like new Date() using jest.spyOn as below:

test('mocks a constructor like new Date()', () => {   console.log('Normal:   ', new Date().getTime())    const mockDate = new Date(1466424490000)   const spy = jest     .spyOn(global, 'Date')     .mockImplementation(() => mockDate)    console.log('Mocked:   ', new Date().getTime())   spy.mockRestore()    console.log('Restored: ', new Date().getTime()) }) 

And the output looks like:

Normal:    1566424897579 Mocked:    1466424490000 Restored:  1566424897608 

See the reference project on GitHub.

Note: If you are using TypeScript and you would encounter a compilation error, Argument of type '() => Date' is not assignable to parameter of type '() => string'. Type 'Date' is not assignable to type 'string'. In this case, a workaround is to use the mockdate library, which can be used to change when "now" is. See this question for more details.