CODEWITHSUNDEEP
httpnode.js
donald
donald

Reputation: 23737

Simulate HTTP responses to test a node.js HTTP client

How can I simulate HTTP responses to test an app?

What I'd like to do is to simulate HTTP responses to test a HTTP node.js client. Is there something I can use like fakeweb but for node.js?

Upvotes: 5

Views: 7926

Answers (7)

lol
lol

Reputation: 413

If I understood well the question you could use nock (https://github.com/pgte/nock) to mock a fake HTTP response from a given route.

An example if you use should.js(https://github.com/visionmedia/should.js/) for assertion, request for requests (lol) could be something like this:

should = require 'should'
nock = require 'nock'
request = require 'request'
require '../../app.coffee'

// just a mock obj to reply
mockObj = 
    id: 42

mockRoute = nock 'http://www.mock.com.br'
    .get '/path/you/want/to/mock'
    .reply 200, mockObj

describe "Mock API", ->

    describe "Mock route", ->

        it "should return 200 OK and mockObj.id 42", (done) ->
        // Arranges test URL
        testUrl = "http://www.testurl.com.br:3000/path/you/want/to/test"
        expectedObj =
            id: 42

    request.get testUrl, (error, response, body) ->

        // compares expected response's statusCode with received
        response.should.have.status 200
            expected.should.eql JSON.parse(body)

It's just an example and a bit poor for a production test but I think it's a good example to show how it would work.

But in this case it's like I'm testing if my which is running on port 3000 is being able to handle the request for testUrl and transforming this request on a request to the mocked route which is something outside I want to reach and be sure that node is getting it when I call testUrl.

Hope it helps.

Edit: The code is in coffeescript (in case somebody doesn't know it). Gist in JS if you prefer -> https://gist.github.com/marcoagner/9501662

Edit2: Did not even look up the date.. Gotta sleep :P Sorry. Will just let it here in case it helps somebody out there. hahaha

Upvotes: 1

mtkopone
mtkopone

Reputation: 6443

We we're previously using a custombuilt HTTP dummy server, but recently switched to this:

https://github.com/pgte/nock

Upvotes: 3

amandawulf
amandawulf

Reputation: 683

I haven't tried it myself, but here is a module I found that says it does just that: https://github.com/howardabrams/node-mocks-http

Upvotes: 0

Stephen Emslie
Stephen Emslie

Reputation: 11005

Expresso provides this by extending the assert module:

assert.response(server, {
    url: '/',
    method: 'GET'
},{
    body: '{"name":"tj"}',
    status: 200,
    headers: {
        'Content-Type': 'application/json; charset=utf8',
        'X-Foo': 'bar'
    }
});

This works with the built-in node.js http server. It has the advantage of not requiring a listening server. The disadvantage is perhaps that it requires you to use the rest of the expresso testing framework.

http://visionmedia.github.com/expresso/

Upvotes: 0

nicolaskruchten
nicolaskruchten

Reputation: 27370

Why not use a node.js server? They're trivial to write and would give you complete control over the response.

Here's an example, straight from http://nodejs.org/

var http = require('http');
http.createServer(function (req, res) {
  res.writeHead(200, {'Content-Type': 'text/plain'});
  res.end('Hello World\n');
}).listen(8124, "127.0.0.1");
console.log('Server running at http://127.0.0.1:8124/');

Upvotes: 4

noodl
noodl

Reputation: 17408

There are various tools and mechanisms described here:

http://wiki.apache.org/httpd/WatchingHttpHeaders

Actually, that page is focussed primarily on watching the http conversation in progress. I'd suggest trying either netcat or cadaver for generating your own custom requests.

Short example of netcat usage:

$ printf "GET\n\n" |nc localhost 80
<html><body><h1>It works!</h1></body></html>

EDIT Doh! I just realised you want to simulate responses not requests, sorry. Netcat can still be useful for this, though. Set it up to listen and you have complete control over its output.

Upvotes: 1

Jed Schneider
Jed Schneider

Reputation: 14671

For Ruby, if you want to use outside of rails, you might look at the code for Functional testing included with rails as example, which allows a nice set of wrappers around test::unit for accessing http methods. For either node.js or ruby you can use cucumber to test workflows and have a webdriver access the pages. Cucumber works with the web driver of your choice (webrat, selenium, celerity, waiter, etc) and has access to the HTTP request, response, and headers.

http://cukes.info

Upvotes: 0

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