What does 'pending' test mean in Mocha, and how can I make it pass/fail?

Question

I am running my tests and noticed:

18 passing (150ms) 1 pending 

I haven't seen this before. Previously test either passed, or failed. Timeouts caused failures. I can see which test is failing because it's also blue. But it has a timeout on it. Here's a simplified version:

test(`Errors when bad thing happens`), function(){   try {     var actual = doThing(option)           } catch (err) {     assert(err.message.includes('invalid'))   }   throw new Error(`Expected an error and didn't get one!`) } 

• What does 'pending' mean? How could a test be 'pending' when Mocha has exited and node is no longer running?
• Why is this test not timing out?
• How can I make the test pass or fail?

Thanks!

Answer 1

A test can end up being shown by Mocha as "pending" when you inadvertently closed the test's it method early, like:

// Incorrect -- arguments of the it method are closed early it('tests some functionality'), () => {   // Test code goes here... }; 

The it method's arguments should include the test function definition, like:

// Correct it('tests some functionality', () => {   // Test code goes here... });