Need equivalent to assert.response()

[Swatinem]

Expresso had a really easy way to test servers and their responses: assert.response(server, ...)

I saw you use a small request class (support/http) in connect and express, but copying it to my code didn't work as expected. An official tool to ease this task would be really awesome.

[rauchg]

The problem is that there's not one perfect way of testing requests/responses. For example, in Socket.IO there's many specific requirements as far as testing long polling, for which assert.response just didn't work well.

I think this would be a good standalone project: require('http-assert') Think should.js for http.

[tj]

yeah ideally what we should do is use superagent, or a project on top of superagent that allows request(app).get('/....) that will fire up the app on an ephemeral port. The goal of superagent was to provide every layer of abstraction necessary to perform both high-level and low-level requests, so it would be perfect for testing applications with broken json, broken multipart, valid multipart etc. Until I can finish up superagent I've been using this crappy little util for express/connect https://github.com/visionmedia/express/blob/master/test/support/http.js

which looks something like:

request(app).get('/foo').expect('bar', done)

a benefit of mocha's auto-exit feature as well is that we can safely nest these without worrying about manually closing severs unlike assert.response / expresso

[rauchg]

Yeah a module on top of superagent would be ideal I think. Unless it's really minimal in which case it can go straight into superagent

[tj]

should be small enough to add straight in, the only default that i can think off right now that would need defaulting to something different for testing would be the redirects since you'll probably want to assert locations etc i think the rest should be fine for testing

[tj]

if app.get() for express wasn't for settings we could have all the verbs return a request thing:

app
  .get('/')
  .set('Content-Type', 'application/json')
  .data({ foo: 'bar' })
  .end(callback)

I guess it could be hacked with the leading / haha

[rauchg]

We can always have superagent take a express Route.

[behrendtio]

Quick usage example for self implemented http support version:

// /test/support/http.js
var app = require('../../app');
var http = require('http');

module.exports.request = function(path, cb) {
    var port = app.address().port;
    http.request({ path: path, port: port }).on('response', function(res) {
        res.body = '';
        res.on('data', function(chunk) {
            res.body += chunk;
        });

        res.on('end', function() {
            cb(res);
        });
    }).end();
}

// In your tests
var http = require('support/http');
require('should');

describe(...) {
    it(...) {
        http.request('/', function(res) {
            res.statusCode.should.equal(200);
        });
    }
}

[tj]

closing for now since it's semi-unrelated (mocha wont bundle anything like this)

[jockster]

Has there been any change with this - ie. any new works created making this possible?

Can't get neither @MarioBehrendt 's solution or the http.js @visionmedia linked to, working in my application.

[behrendtio]

My version is pretty much a simple version of TJ's file. What's the problem? Can you paste your code and the errors, please?

[jockster]

Sorry. Had a syntax error that I overlooked. Is there a way that I can test POST, PUT & DELETE and send data along the request by modifying your above example?

Are you guys sure that this can't be included or at least mentioned in in the documentation? I absolutely pulled my hair before I found this post.

Performing response-testing probably is what many people are looking for and it's a shame that they choose a different testing component when mocha seems so mature.

[tj]

@theindustry there's no reason to package it in mocha, it's unrelated to the client-side and it's not the be-all end-all solution for testing HTTP. Eventually I'll be recommending visionmedia/superagent for testing HTTP related stuff but it's not quite there yet