When it comes to automation testing, it requires a very systematic approach to automate test cases and set them up for seamless execution of any application.
Join the DZone community and get the full member experience. If you are in the world of software development, you must be aware of Node.js. From Amazon to LinkedIn, a plethora of major websites use Node.js. Powered by JavaScript, Node.js can run on a server, and a majority of devs use it for enterprise applications. As they consider it a very respectable language due to the power it provides them to work with. And if you follow Node.js best practices, you can increase your application performance on a vast scale. When it comes to automation testing, it requires a very systematic approach to automate test cases and set them up for seamless execution of any application. This requires us to follow a set of defined best practices for better results. To help you do that, we will let you in on the best Node.js tips for automation testing. For better test results, test cases in Node.js are usually kept small and to the point. As the best Node.js practices go, you will find each case and its test data being distinct from the other without any interference. This enables failures from one test not to impact other test failures and provide more concrete results. Also, it would help improve test performance to a great extent. A meaningful name means a lot in writing test cases. It’s crucial in writing effective test cases as the name should be able to communicate the case goal by being meaningful and easy to comprehend for all stakeholders. Never assign a test with any random name. You should name it as properly as possible like checkCountryLanguage() or validateUserPhoneNumber(). A good test case name should clearly state the following: Using a style that helps to write tests in a language that is close to product expectations is one of the universally accepted Node.js best practices. Such declarative writing style enables users to instantly understand the test flow and expectations in a single glance, keeping the actual coding parts hidden from non-technical stakeholders. BDD or Behavior Driven Development is the best example of such an approach and is very popular among organizations due to its ease and ability to integrate well with Node.js. Assertions make up a very important part of any test case. These declared statements may or may not be true and provide a Boolean output, which helps us to verify whether a test case is executed as per expectations or not. Assertions are very integral to Node.js automation testing and highly recommended to be used in a self-explanatory way, thus reducing code efforts and providing solid results. Assertions are useful as they save the dev’s time to check the complete output and respond on each step by comparing the expectations with results and letting us know if a test passed or failed. These assets are human-readable and easy to implement through Chai library support in a node. One example of a good assert is: expect(todayWeather).to.be.(clear); A good test case code is well-factored and has minimal external interactions. It is a complete unit in itself and has the least utility, hooks, or external effects. It should be written so that a new developer or tester should not have to move to another test to understand the previous one or go through a complete hierarchy of test cases. Minimizing these makes the test less complicated, easy to understand, and easy to maintain and is considered an essential Node.js best practice. Often referred to as a library or tool, a test runner runs tests on a source code directory, which contains many unit tests. It shares the test results run in the form of log files or console logs in a readable form for the user. There are various test runners present in the market, but the best-suited test runner for Node.js is Mocha. Mocha is an open source test runner that provides a programmatic easy-to-implement approach to test runs and gets good results. It is also beneficial while working with databases to feed values to test cases that can be a dummy or real as required and handles the disadvantages of most other Node.js test runners. Test coverage is essential for any good software code. It is the measure of the amount of code covered by test cases and hence is considered a crucial point while writing tests. So as per Node.js best practices, while writing test cases for good coverage, always remember that: For better test coverage, the Istanbul test coverage tool can be used, and it integrated well with Mocha as well. Plugins are beneficial in writing good unit tests as they help to analyze written tests for maximum code coverage and any failures or skipped tests for any reason. They help by sharing proper reports of passed, failed, and skipped tests, thus preventing false alarms indicating low test coverage due to skipped or unexecuted tests. Considering how easy it is to implement this one out of the other Node.js best practices, you can always start here. Mocha and Istanbul make a very good combination to generate useful test reports that can be analyzed for better results, checked for failures or issues, and used to fix them up. Developers often swear by such Node.js tips. And using Istanbul with Node.js automation is pivotal as it gives easy and straightforward reports for test coverage and gives a percentage of the coverage as well.
