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Running a test with Mocha also launches the main program

I'm trying to use Mocha to test a CLI app. The tests are running fine but, when I launch the testing procedure, it also launches the main app:
$ npm run test
> standardize-js#0.2.2 test C:\Users\Gaspard\Documents\Code\standardize-js
> mocha "./source/**/*.spec.js"
? Choose your project language or framework (Use arrow keys) //<-- THIS IS THE PROGRAM
> Javascript
Typescript
AngularJS
Main function //<-- THIS IS THE TEST
ask if the configuration is valid
Configuration is not valid, terminating program.
√ should return false if the configuration is not accepted
1 passing (29ms)
I'm kind of new to the testing world and I'm really struggling to understand what I'm doing wrong.
Here is the NPM script used to launch mocha :
"test": "mocha \"./source/**/*.spec.js\""
Here is my testing method:
/* eslint-disable func-names */
const { expect } = require("chai");
const main = require("./index").test;
describe("Main function", function() {
describe("ask if the configuration is valid", function() {
it("should return false if the configuration is not accepted", function() {
const fakeAnswer = false;
expect(main.validateConfiguration(fakeAnswer)).to.equal(false);
});
});
});
And here is my index.js file:
function validateConfiguration(answer) {
if (answer === false) {
console.log(chalk.red("Configuration is not valid, terminating program."));
return false;
}
return true;
}
const run = async () => {
//MAIN FUNCTION
};
run();
// Export functions and variables to be able to test
exports.test = {
validateConfiguration
};

It's not a problem with mocha. It is simply now node.js modules work.
When you do this:
const main = require("./index").test;
Node.js will execute index.js and then check the value of module.exports. If the module (index.js) sets or modifies module.exports then node will export it for use by require(). But note, in order for node to know that the module has exported anything it must execute the javascript file.
Node.js does not have any ability to parse and analyze javascript syntax (that's V8's job). Unlike other languages such as C or Java, modules in node.js are not implemented at the syntax level. Therefore the javascript language does not need to be modified (eg. ES6 modules) for node.js to support modules. Modules are simply implemented as a design pattern.
In your index.js file you call run:
run();
When require() loads index.js it will therefore also cause run() to be called.
Test libraries, not main
The solution to this is to implement your own logic as modules and test that, not test index.js:
mylib.js:
function validateConfiguration(answer) {
if (answer === false) {
console.log(chalk.red("Configuration is not valid, terminating program."));
return false;
}
return true;
}
// Export functions and variables to be able to test
exports.test = { validateConfiguration };
index.js:
const validateConfiguration = require("./mylib").test;
const run = async () => {
//MAIN FUNCTION
};
run();
You can now use your test script as written.
How can you not test code??
The strategy to keep index.js bug free without testing is to remove all logic from it except for the minimum amount of code to wire all your other code up together to run the app. The code should be as simple as "Hello World". That way, the code in main is so small and so simple that you can test it for bugs using your eyeballs.
Any code in index.js that causes a bug should be refactored into its own library so that it can be tested separately. There are a small handful of corner cases, such as loading environment variables or opening port 80 where you can't really separate into a library because they literally are wiring logic. For such cases you just have to be really careful.

It's calling run because you are telling it to right after defining the method.

Browserify + AngularJS index.js IIFE params undefined

I have the following index.js for an angular app. Even though the var statements are executed first, and all variables are successfully logged to the console before the IIFE is executed, they are undefined once it steps into the IIFE scope, with the exception of angular. Presumably angular is defined, because angular is a global object. I've seen window and jquery passed in the same way. I'm just wondering if there is a way for me to pass these locally declared objects to my app's main IIFE script like this? Did I do it wrong? Please help - I'm stumped.
var angular = require('angular'),
config = {
params: require('./config/params').config,
routes: require('./config/routes').config
},
x = {};
(function (angular, config, x) {
// *****angular is the only one of these parameters that is defined here
console.info(angular) // works
console.info(config) // undefined
console.info(x) // works
})(angular, config, x);
Updated
As a commenter pointed out, this is an issue with browserify. If I pass an object I declare literally, it works fine. Does anyone know why this is happening or how to fix it?
Here's my browserify command:
browserify -e -d src/index.js -p [minifyify --map sourcemap.json --output sourcemap.json --uglify] > build/index.js
(I removed the parameter value and shortened the paths for brevity.)

How to properly require modules from mocha.opts file

I'm using the expect.js library with my mocha unit tests. Currently, I'm requiring the library on the first line of each file, like this:
var expect = require('expect.js');
describe('something', function () {
it('should pass', function () {
expect(true).to.be(true); // works
});
});
If possible, I'd like to remove the boilerplate require code from the first line of each file, and have my unit tests magically know about expect. I thought I might be able to do this using the mocha.opts file:
--require ./node_modules/expect.js/index.js
But now I get the following error when running my test:
ReferenceError: expect is not defined
This seems to make sense - how can it know that the reference to expect in my tests refers to what is exported by the expect.js library?
The expect library is definitely getting loaded, as if I change the path to something non-existent then mocha says:
"Error: Cannot find module './does-not-exist.js'"
Is there any way to accomplish what I want? I'm running my tests from a gulp task if perhaps that could help.

You are requiring the module properly but as you figured out, the symbols that the module export won't automatically find themselves into the global space. You can remedy this with your own helper module.
Create test/helper.js:
var expect = require("expect.js")
global.expect = expect;
and set your test/mocha.opts to:
--require test/helper

While Louis's answer is spot on, in the end I solved this with a different approach by using karma and the karma-chai plugin:
Install:
npm install karma-chai --save-dev
Configure:
karma.set({
frameworks: ['mocha', 'chai']
// ...
});
Use:
describe('something', function () {
it('should pass', function () {
expect(true).to.be(true); // works
});
});

Thanks to Louis answer and a bit of fiddling around I sorted out my test environment references using mocha.opts. Here is the complete setup.
My project is a legacy JavaScript application with a lot of "plain" js files which I wish to reference both in an html file using script tags and using require for unit testing with mocha.
I am not certain that this is good practice but I am used to Mocha for unit testing in node project and was eager to use the same tool with minimal adaptation.
I found that exporting is easy:
class Foo{...}
class Bar{...}
if (typeof module !== 'undefined') module.exports = { Foo, Bar };
or
class Buzz{...}
if (typeof module !== 'undefined') module.exports = Buzz;
However, trying to use require in all the files was an issue as the browser would complain about variables being already declared even when enclosed in an if block such as:
if (typeof require !== 'undefined') {
var {Foo,Bar} = require('./foobar.js');
}
So I got rid of the require part in the files and set up a mocha.opts file in my test folder with this content. The paths are relative to the root folder:
--require test/mocha.opts.js
mocha.opts.js content. The paths are relative to the location of the file:
global.assert = require('assert');
global.Foo = require("../foobar.js").Foo;
global.Bar = require("../foobar.js").Bar;
global.Buzz = require("../buzz.js");

NodeJS and Javascript (requirejs) dependency injection

I am currently using requirejs to manage module js/css dependencies.
I'd like to discover the possibilities of having node do this via a centralized config file.
So instead of manually doing something like
define([
'jquery'
'lib/somelib'
'views/someview']
within each module.
I'd have node inject the dependencies ie
require('moduleA').setDeps('jquery','lib/somelib','views/someview')
Anyway, I'm interested in any projects looking at dependency injection for node.
thanks

I've come up with a solution for dependency injection. It's called injectr, and it uses node's vm library and replaces the default functionality of require when including a file.
So in your tests, instead of require('libToTest'), use injectr('libToTest' { 'libToMock' : myMock });. I wanted to make the interface as straightforward as possible, with no need to alter the code being tested. I think it works quite well.
It's just worth noting that injectr files are relative to the working directory, unlike require which is relative to the current file, but that shouldn't matter because it's only used in tests.

I've previously toyed with the idea of providing an alternate require to make a form of dependency injection available in Node.js.
Module code
For example, suppose you have following statements in code.js:
fs = require('fs');
console.log(fs.readFileSync('text.txt', 'utf-8'));
If you run this code with node code.js, then it will print out the contents of text.txt.
Injector code
However, suppose you have a test module that wants to abstract away the file system.
Your test file test.js could then look like this:
var origRequire = global.require;
global.require = dependencyLookup;
require('./code.js');
function dependencyLookup (file) {
switch (file) {
case 'fs': return { readFileSync: function () { return "test contents"; } };
default: return origRequire(file);
}
}
If you now run node test.js, it will print out "test contents", even though it includes code.js.

I've also written a module to accomplish this, it's called rewire. Just use npm install rewire and then:
var rewire = require("rewire"),
myModule = rewire("./path/to/myModule.js"); // exactly like require()
// Your module will now export a special setter and getter for private variables.
myModule.__set__("myPrivateVar", 123);
myModule.__get__("myPrivateVar"); // = 123
// This allows you to mock almost everything within the module e.g. the fs-module.
// Just pass the variable name as first parameter and your mock as second.
myModule.__set__("fs", {
readFile: function (path, encoding, cb) {
cb(null, "Success!");
}
});
myModule.readSomethingFromFileSystem(function (err, data) {
console.log(data); // = Success!
});
I've been inspired by Nathan MacInnes's injectr but used a different approach. I don't use vm to eval the test-module, in fact I use node's own require. This way your module behaves exactly like using require() (except your modifications). Also debugging is fully supported.

How to reuse commonjs modules in the browser and server using modulr?

I'm using modulr for using commonjs modules in the browser.
The goal is to be able to reuse some of those modules also in a server environment.
These "shared" modules need to do something like this:
var _ = _ || require("underscore");
meaning:
if _ exists as a global var (browser environment), use it
else load the "underscore" module (server), and use it instead
Now, since modulr does static analysis in all the code, looking for the require calls in order to generate the final js file, it will fail the build.
Is there a way to work around this problem?
(For example, if modulr supported something like --ignore=<module_list> parameter, everything would run fine.)

Apparently there's no way to fix this in modulr, so I had to create a workaround module named Env which looks like this:
// Env.js
var my = {
modules: undefined,
require: require
};
exports.override = function(modules) {
my.modules = modules;
};
exports.require = function(path) {
if (my.modules && my.modules[path]) {
return my.modules[path];
} else {
// my.require(...) is needed instead of simply require(...)
// because simply require(...) will cause a modulr parsing failure
return my.require(path);
}
};
And at the client side, have a specific initializer that does:
// ClientInitializer.js
Env = require('shared/Env');
Env.override({ underscore: _ });
So, the "shared" modules can do:
// SharedModule.js
var _ = require('shared/Env').require('underscore');
If the "shared" module is running in the server, the normal require function is called.
If it is running in the browser, the Env module will answer with the global _ variable.