CODEWITHSUNDEEP
node.jsunit-testingwebserverapplication-shutdown
Golo Roden
Golo Roden

Reputation: 150902

Shutting down a Node.js http server in a unit test

Supposed I have some unit tests that test a web server. For reasons I don't want to discuss here (outside scope ;-)), every test needs a newly started server.

As long as I don't send a request to the server, everything is fine. But once I do, a call to the http server's close function does not work as expected, as all made requests result in kept-alive connections, hence the server waits for 120 seconds before actually closing.

Of course this is not acceptable for running the tests.

At the moment, the only solutions I'd see was either

Any other ideas of how to deal with this situation?

PS: I had a asked How do I shutdown a Node.js http(s) server immediately? a while ago, and found a viable way to work around it, but as it seems this workaround does not run reliably in every case, as I am getting strange results from time to time.

Upvotes: 3

Views: 1290

Answers (1)

MobA11y
MobA11y

Reputation: 18900

function createOneRequestServer() {
    var server = http.createServer(function (req, res) {
        res.write('write stuff');
        res.end();
        server.close();
    }).listen(8080);
}

You could also consider using process to fork processes and kill them after you have tested on that process. 

var child = fork('serverModuleYouWishToTest.js');

function callback(signalCode) {
    child.kill(signalCode);
}

runYourTest(callback);

This method is desirable because it does not require you to write special cases of your servers to service only one request, and keeps your test code and your production code 100% independant.

Upvotes: 2

Related Questions