Testing Controllers

Here we have a controller PostsController with some computed properties and an action setProps.

App.PostsController = Ember.ArrayController.extend({

  propA: 'You need to write tests',
  propB: 'And write one for me too',

  setPropB: function(str) {
    this.set('propB', str);
  },

  actions: {
    setProps: function(str) {
      this.set('propA', 'Testing is cool');
      this.setPropB(str);
    }
  }
});

setProps sets a property on the controller and also calls a method. To write a test for this action, we would use the moduleFor helper to setup a test container:

moduleFor('controller:posts', 'Posts Controller');

Next we use this.subject() to get an instance of the PostsController and write a test to check the action. this.subject() is a helper method from the ember-qunit library that returns a singleton instance of the module set up using moduleFor.

test('calling the action setProps updates props A and B', function() {
  expect(4);

  // get the controller instance
  var ctrl = this.subject();

  // check the properties before the action is triggered
  equal(ctrl.get('propA'), 'You need to write tests');
  equal(ctrl.get('propB'), 'And write one for me too');

  // trigger the action on the controller by using the `send` method,
  // passing in any params that our action may be expecting
  ctrl.send('setProps', 'Testing Rocks!');

  // finally we assert that our values have been updated
  // by triggering our action.
  equal(ctrl.get('propA'), 'Testing is cool');
  equal(ctrl.get('propB'), 'Testing Rocks!');
});

Unit Testing Controllers "Actions"

Sometimes controllers have dependencies on other controllers. This is accomplished by using needs. For example, here are two simple controllers. The PostController is a dependency of the CommentsController:

App.PostController = Ember.ObjectController.extend({
  // ...
});

App.CommentsController = Ember.ArrayController.extend({
  needs: 'post',
  title: Ember.computed.alias('controllers.post.title'),
});

This time when we setup our moduleFor we need to pass an options object as our third argument that has the controller's needs.

moduleFor('controller:comments', 'Comments Controller', {
  needs: ['controller:post']
});

Now let's write a test that sets a property on our post model in the PostController that would be available on the CommentsController.

test('modify the post', function() {
  expect(2);

  // grab an instance of `CommentsController` and `PostController`
  var ctrl = this.subject(),
      postCtrl = ctrl.get('controllers.post');

  // wrap the test in the run loop because we are dealing with async functions
  Ember.run(function() {

    // set a generic model on the post controller
    postCtrl.set('model', Ember.Object.create({ title: 'foo' }));

    // check the values before we modify the post
    equal(ctrl.get('title'), 'foo');

    // modify the title of the post
    postCtrl.get('model').set('title', 'bar');

    // assert that the controllers title has changed
    equal(ctrl.get('title'), 'bar');

  });
});

Unit Testing Controllers "Needs"