CODEWITHSUNDEEP
javascriptmocha.jschai
Michael Durrant
Michael Durrant

Reputation: 96454

Mocha - How can I set a variable with a before block?

My example has

let resort30 = new Resort('Alta');

at the top of the file and then uses it within the the test case, i.e.

let alta = new Visit(resort30, '03/01/2000'); // Note this is before any describe

That works. However if I create a before or beforeEach within the describe and before all the its with:

before(function () {
  let resort30 = new Resort('Alta');
});

and comment out the original declaration, then resort30 isn't recognized with

 ReferenceError: resort30 is not defined                                                                                                  
  at Context.<anonymous> (test/ski_resorts_using_befores.spec.js:52:26)

How can I get it to work when I move that variable into the before or beforeEach so all its can use it ?

I don't want it at the top, I want it to be scoped to the describe as I plan more describes in this file. Even with 1 describe , I want to be able to use before and beforeEach` for variables and objects i wanna create.

Upvotes: 8

Views: 4407

Answers (2)

Sebastian Kaczmarek
Sebastian Kaczmarek

Reputation: 8515

let is visible only in the scope it has been declared or from inner scopes. That's why it's not recognized in another scope. To have some kind of a global variable but scoped to the describe() block you need to declare it at the top of the block and initialize in the before() or beforeEach() block:

describe('Test suite', () => {

    let resort30 = null;

    before(() => {
        resort30 = new Resort('Alta');
    });

    it('should pass', () => {
        console.log(resort30);
    });
});

Upvotes: 8

wowyesokay
wowyesokay

Reputation: 119

You aren't able to see resort30 because if you declare it inside a function, it's scoped only to that function. 

let resort30; // declare it at the top level scope of the file

before(function () {
    resort30 = new Resort('Alta'); // modify the value here
});

Upvotes: 3

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