ReferenceError: Can't find variable: chai

[catamphetamine]

What does it mean?

17 07 2015 16:45:31.239:INFO [karma]: Karma v0.13.1 server started at http://localhost:9876/
17 07 2015 16:45:31.249:INFO [launcher]: Starting browser PhantomJS
17 07 2015 16:45:31.481:INFO [PhantomJS 1.9.8 (Linux 0.0.0)]: Connected on socket 3EAMNnOhXQnVs70-AAAA with id 12171161
PhantomJS 1.9.8 (Linux 0.0.0) ERROR
  ReferenceError: Can't find variable: chai
  at /home/kuchumovn/pussy_face/node_modules/karma-sinon-chai/node_modules/sinon-chai/lib/sinon-chai.js:9


[16:45:31] 'test' errored after 14 s
[16:45:31] Error: 1
  at formatError (/usr/local/lib/node_modules/gulp/bin/gulp.js:169:10)
  at Gulp.<anonymous> (/usr/local/lib/node_modules/gulp/bin/gulp.js:195:15)
  at Gulp.EventEmitter.emit (events.js:95:17)
  at Gulp.Orchestrator._emitTaskDone (/home/kuchumovn/pussy_face/node_modules/gulp/node_modules/orchestrator/index.js:264:8)
  at /home/kuchumovn/pussy_face/node_modules/gulp/node_modules/orchestrator/index.js:275:23
  at finish (/home/kuchumovn/pussy_face/node_modules/gulp/node_modules/orchestrator/lib/runTask.js:21:8)
  at cb (/home/kuchumovn/pussy_face/node_modules/gulp/node_modules/orchestrator/lib/runTask.js:29:3)
  at removeAllListeners (/home/kuchumovn/pussy_face/node_modules/karma/lib/server.js:301:7)
  at Server.<anonymous> (/home/kuchumovn/pussy_face/node_modules/karma/lib/server.js:312:9)
  at Server.g (events.js:180:16)
  at Server.EventEmitter.emit (events.js:117:20)
  at net.js:1273:10
  at process._tickCallback (node.js:415:13)

They say:

Your unit test has the line require('../index'), but the problem is that your test is going to run in a browser environment, which does not have a native require function (hence the ReferenceError). If you need to include a separate file you could us the "requirejs" library (which is intended for browsers). Or you could use a <script> tag in your HTML file? Or maybe just a simple Ajax call...

[bobfields]

Downgrading karma-sinon-chai from 1.0.0 to 0.3.2 fixes this issue for us, all other dependencies (grunt, karma, sinon, chai) kept at the latest versions. Somebody else posted the same issue to stackoverflow: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/31469889/karma-sinon-chai-fails-after-moving-to-windows/31480290.

[catamphetamine]

Oh, ok, thanks

[bobfields]

But it is still an issue with v1.0.0, wondering why the issue was closed.

[catamphetamine]

@bobfields oh, okay, I thought you ment me to close this one. reopening it then.

[bobfields]

Reverting karma-sinon-chai index.js in v1.0.0 to the version contained in v0.3.2 fixes the problem, even with the updated chai, sinon, sinon-chai dependency versions. Looks like extensive changes to the way sinon and chai are resolved and the sinon files are mapped.

[leoyuholo]

I run into the same issue today, and curious why it didn't cause problem before. I just found out that chai updated to 3.1.0 yesterday ('3.1.0': '2015-07-16T21:42:30.681Z') using npm view chai and dependence in package.json is "chai": "~3.0"

By the way, issue #20 also mentioned a similar problem and index.js is updated but not yet propagated to npm.

Are these related? Wondering the problem is known and solved, but just not yet propagated to npm.

[eddiemonge]

@kmees still around? If you want help maintaining this, I'm sure people would love to contribute.

[kevicency]

@eddiemonge yeah, just had to take a break. contributions are welcome, hope everything is fixed in 1.1.0 :)