Testing promise in Angular 2 ngOnInit

Question

I have an Angular 2 component I am trying to put under test, but I am having trouble because the data is set in the ngOnInit function, so is not immediately available in the unit test.

user-view.component.ts:

import {Component, OnInit} from 'angular2/core';
import {RouteParams} from 'angular2/router';

import {User} from './user';
import {UserService} from './user.service';

@Component({
  selector: 'user-view',
  templateUrl: './components/users/view.html'
})
export class UserViewComponent implements OnInit {
  public user: User;

  constructor(
    private _routeParams: RouteParams,
    private _userService: UserService
  ) {}

  ngOnInit() {
    const id: number = parseInt(this._routeParams.get('id'));

    this._userService
      .getUser(id)
      .then(user => {
        console.info(user);
        this.user = user;
      });
  }
}

user.service.ts:

import {Injectable} from 'angular2/core';

// mock-users is a static JS array
import {users} from './mock-users';
import {User} from './user';

@Injectable()
export class UserService {
  getUsers() : Promise<User[]> {
    return Promise.resolve(users);
  }

  getUser(id: number) : Promise<User> {
    return Promise.resolve(users[id]);
  }
}

user-view.component.spec.ts:

import {
  beforeEachProviders,
  describe,
  expect,
  it,
  injectAsync,
  TestComponentBuilder
} from 'angular2/testing';
import {provide} from 'angular2/core';
import {RouteParams} from 'angular2/router';
import {DOM} from 'angular2/src/platform/dom/dom_adapter';

import {UserViewComponent} from './user-view.component';

import {UserService} from './user.service';

export function main() {
  describe('User view component', () => {
    beforeEachProviders(() => [
      provide(RouteParams, { useValue: new RouteParams({ id: '0' }) }),
      UserService
    ]);

    it('should have a name', injectAsync([TestComponentBuilder], (tcb: TestComponentBuilder) => {
      return tcb.createAsync(UserViewComponent)
        .then((rootTC) => {
          spyOn(console, 'info');

          let uvDOMEl = rootTC.nativeElement;
          rootTC.detectChanges();

          expect(console.info).toHaveBeenCalledWith(0);
          expect(DOM.querySelectorAll(uvDOMEl, 'h2').length).toBe(0);
        });
    }));

  });
}

The route param is getting passed correctly, but the view hasn't changed before the tests are run. How do I set up a test that happens after the promise in ngOnInit is resolved?

Answer 1

IMO the best solution for this use case is to just make a synchronous mock service . You can't use fakeAsync for this particular case because of the XHR call for templateUrl. And personally I don't think the "hack" to make ngOnInit return a promise is very elegant. And you should not have to call ngOnInit directly, as it should be called by the framework.

You should already be using mocks anyway, as you are only unit testing the component, and don't want to be dependent on the real service working correctly.

To make a service that is synchronous, simple return the service itself from whatever methods are being called. You can then add your then and catch (subscribe if you are using Observable) methods to the mock, so it acts like a Promise. For example

class MockService {
  data;
  error;

  getData() {
    return this;
  }

  then(callback) {
    if (!this.error) {
      callback(this.data);
    }
    return this;
  }

  catch(callback) {
    if (this.error) {
      callback(this.error);
    }
  }

  setData(data) {
    this.data = data;
  }

  setError(error) {
    this.error = error;
  }
}

This has a few benefits. For one it gives you a lot of control over the service during execution, so you can easily customize it's behavior. And of course it's all synchronous.

Here's another example.

A common thing you will see with components is the use of ActivatedRoute and subscribing to its params. This is asynchronous, and done inside the ngOnInit. What I tend to do with this is create a mock for both the ActivatedRoute and the params property. The params property will be a mock object and have some functionality that appears to the outside world like an observable.

export class MockParams {
  subscription: Subscription;
  error;

  constructor(private _parameters?: {[key: string]: any}) {
    this.subscription = new Subscription();
    spyOn(this.subscription, 'unsubscribe');
  }

  get params(): MockParams {
    return this;
  }

  subscribe(next: Function, error: Function): Subscription {
    if (this._parameters && !this.error) {
      next(this._parameters);
    }
    if (this.error) {
      error(this.error);
    }
    return this.subscription;
  }
}

export class MockActivatedRoute {
  constructor(public params: MockParams) {}
}

You can see we have a subscribe method that behaves like an Observable#subscribe. Another thing we do is spy on the Subscription so that we can test that it is destroyed. In most cases you will have unsubscribed inside your ngOnDestroy. To set up these mocks in your test you can just do something like

let mockParams: MockParams;

beforeEach(() => {
  mockParams = new MockParams({ id: 'one' });
  TestBed.configureTestingModule({
    imports: [ CommonModule ],
    declarations: [ TestComponent ],
    providers: [
      { provide: ActivatedRoute, useValue: new MockActivatedRoute(mockParams) }
    ]
  });
});

Now all the params are set for the route, and we have access to the mock params so we can set the error, and also check the subscription spy to make sure its been unsubscribed from.

If you look at the tests below, you will see that they are all synchronous tests. No need for async or fakeAsync, and it passes with flying colors.

Here is the complete test (using RC6)

import { Component, OnInit, OnDestroy, DebugElement } from '@angular/core';
import { CommonModule } from '@angular/common';
import { ActivatedRoute } from '@angular/router';
import { Subscription } from 'rxjs/Subscription';
import { TestBed, async } from '@angular/core/testing';
import { By } from '@angular/platform-browser';

@Component({
  template: `
    <span *ngIf="id">{{ id }}</span>
    <span *ngIf="error">{{ error }}</span>
  `
})
export class TestComponent implements OnInit, OnDestroy {
  id: string;
  error: string;
  subscription: Subscription;

  constructor(private _route: ActivatedRoute) {}

  ngOnInit() {
    this.subscription = this._route.params.subscribe(
      (params) => {
        this.id = params['id'];
      },
      (error) => {
        this.error = error;
      }
    );
  }

  ngOnDestroy() {
    this.subscription.unsubscribe();
  }
}

export class MockParams {
  subscription: Subscription;
  error;

  constructor(private _parameters?: {[key: string]: any}) {
    this.subscription = new Subscription();
    spyOn(this.subscription, 'unsubscribe');
  }

  get params(): MockParams {
    return this;
  }

  subscribe(next: Function, error: Function): Subscription {
    if (this._parameters && !this.error) {
      next(this._parameters);
    }
    if (this.error) {
      error(this.error);
    }
    return this.subscription;
  }
}

export class MockActivatedRoute {
  constructor(public params: MockParams) {}
}

describe('component: TestComponent', () => {
  let mockParams: MockParams;

  beforeEach(() => {
    mockParams = new MockParams({ id: 'one' });
    TestBed.configureTestingModule({
      imports: [ CommonModule ],
      declarations: [ TestComponent ],
      providers: [
        { provide: ActivatedRoute, useValue: new MockActivatedRoute(mockParams) }
      ]
    });
  });

  it('should set the id on success', () => {
    let fixture = TestBed.createComponent(TestComponent);
    fixture.detectChanges();
    let debugEl = fixture.debugElement;
    let spanEls: DebugElement[] = debugEl.queryAll(By.css('span'));
    expect(spanEls.length).toBe(1);
    expect(spanEls[0].nativeElement.innerHTML).toBe('one');
  });

  it('should set the error on failure', () => {
    mockParams.error = 'Something went wrong';
    let fixture = TestBed.createComponent(TestComponent);
    fixture.detectChanges();
    let debugEl = fixture.debugElement;
    let spanEls: DebugElement[] = debugEl.queryAll(By.css('span'));
    expect(spanEls.length).toBe(1);
    expect(spanEls[0].nativeElement.innerHTML).toBe('Something went wrong');
  });

  it('should unsubscribe when component is destroyed', () => {
    let fixture = TestBed.createComponent(TestComponent);
    fixture.detectChanges();
    fixture.destroy();
    expect(mockParams.subscription.unsubscribe).toHaveBeenCalled();
  });
});

Answer 2

Return a Promise from #ngOnInit:

ngOnInit(): Promise<any> {
  const id: number = parseInt(this._routeParams.get('id'));

  return this._userService
    .getUser(id)
    .then(user => {
      console.info(user);
      this.user = user;
    });
}

I ran into the same issue a few days back, and found this to be the most workable solution. As far as I can tell, it doesn't impact anywhere else in the application; since #ngOnInit has no specified return type in the source's TypeScript, I doubt anything in the source code is expecting a return value from that.

Link to OnInit: https://github.com/angular/angular/blob/2.0.0-beta.6/modules/angular2/src/core/linker/interfaces.ts#L79-L122

Edit

In your test, you'd return a new Promise:

it('should have a name', injectAsync([TestComponentBuilder], (tcb: TestComponentBuilder) => {
  // Create a new Promise to allow greater control over when the test finishes
  //
  return new Promise((resolve, reject) => {
    tcb.createAsync(UserViewComponent)
      .then((rootTC) => {

        // Call ngOnInit manually and put your test inside the callback
        //
        rootTC.debugElement.componentInstance.ngOnInit().then(() => {
          spyOn(console, 'info');

          let uvDOMEl = rootTC.nativeElement;
          rootTC.detectChanges();

          expect(console.info).toHaveBeenCalledWith(0);
          expect(DOM.querySelectorAll(uvDOMEl, 'h2').length).toBe(0);

          // Test is done
          //
          resolve();
        });

      });
    }));

  }