Alternatives

[Raynos]

what do you use to do this kind of thing that is not this?

[dominictarr]

oh, I don't do this kind of thing anymore.

this was from my old mad-science project, that I've back burnered.
I was using this to swap different versions when running tests...
Even when I was working on it,
I realized that you can do this stuff more cleanly by installing
the right node_modules with the exact versions you want to test.

[Raynos]

@dominictarr what do you use to unit test some code and mock out dependencies that touch the database?

[dominictarr]

databases are antipattern.

[dominictarr]

mocking is an antipattern too.

if you really think you need that... build injection into your module.

module.exports = function (evilDbThing) {
  return {
    ...
  }
}

and then go require('db-toucher')(db)

[Raynos]

@dominictarr

databases are antipattern

#winning

[Raynos]

@dominictarr that's a pain in the ass because the database is everywhere >_<

And why inject variables into function. That's what require does

[dominictarr]

well, if you want to use different things with the same interfaces... it's better to be explicit that some wacky hack.

[Raynos]

@dominictarr having looked at all the ways to be explicit. Using require is the best and cleanest.

[dominictarr]

"database is everywhere" is probably the root of the problem.

alternatively, you could just have a thing

  require('db')({mock...})

do that first, and it could set a global thing that returns the database the rest of the time...

[Raynos]

@dominictarr we have a bunch of repo files that have all the db stuff in them. Everyone requires the repo. I dont want to have everyone pass the mock thing through themself into the repo.

I just want to swap everyones repo out for a mock one and not have to pass in the repo.

It's about

var repo = require("./repo")

module.exports = function myThing() {
    ...
}

vs

module.exports = function myThing(repo) {
    ...
}

It's just a pain in the ass to pass everything in. Last time I did that I wrote a dependency injection framework called ncore.

[Raynos]

@dominictarr the global db backdoor to punch the mongo library and inject a fake db thing is a hack.

I prefer proxyquire("/thing", { repo: {mock...} })

[dominictarr]

@Raynos, you must make you own decision and live with it.

[Raynos]

@dominictarr remind me to not do the "ask your for advice then tell you, you are wrong and then argue with you about you being wrong" again.