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Testing Helpers

Testing helpers follows previous patterns shown in Testing Components, because helpers are rendered to templates just like components.

Helpers are best tested with integration tests, but can also be tested with unit tests. Integration tests will provide better coverage for helpers, as it more closely simulates the lifecycle of a helper than in isolation.

We're going to demonstrate how to test helpers by testing the format-currency helper from Writing Helpers.

You can follow along by generating your own helper with ember generate helper format-currency.

app/helpers/format-currency.js

import Ember from 'ember';

export function formatCurrency([value, ...rest], namedArgs) {
  let dollars = Math.floor(value / 100);
  let cents = value % 100;
  let sign = namedArgs.sign === undefined ? '$' : namedArgs.sign;

  if (cents.toString().length === 1) { cents = '0' + cents; }
  return `${sign}${dollars}.${cents}`;
}

export default Ember.Helper.helper(formatCurrency);

Let's start by testing the helper by showing a simple unit test and then move on to testing with integration tests afterwards.

We don't have to use the moduleFor helper for unit testing helpers. Helpers are functions, which can be easily tested with module.

tests/unit/helpers/format-currency-test.js

import { formatCurrency } from 'my-app/helpers/format-currency';
import { module, test } from 'qunit';

module('Unit | Helper | format currency');

test('formats 199 with $ as currency sign', function(assert) {
  assert.equal(formatCurrency([199], { sign: '$' }), '$1.99');
});

As seen in the Writing Helpers guide. The helper function expects the unnamed arguments as an array as the first argument. It expects the named arguments as an object as the second argument.

Now we can move on to an integration test. Integration testing helpers is done with the moduleForComponent helpers, as shown in Testing Components.

tests/integration/helpers/format-currency-test.js

import { moduleForComponent, test } from 'ember-qunit';
import hbs from 'htmlbars-inline-precompile';

moduleForComponent('format-currency', 'Integration | Component | pretty color', {
  integration: true
});

test('formats 199 with $ as currency sign', function(assert) {
  this.set('value', 199);
  this.set('sign', '$');

  this.render(hbs`{{format-currency value sign=sign}}`);

  assert.equal(this.$().text().trim(), '$1.99');
});

We can now also properly test if a helper will respond to property changes.

tests/integration/helpers/format-currency-test.js

test('updates the currency sign when it changes', function(assert) {
  this.set('value', 199);
  this.set('sign', '$');

  this.render(hbs`{{format-currency value sign=sign}}`);

  assert.equal(this.$().text().trim(), '$1.99', 'Value is formatted with $');

  this.set('sign', '€');

  assert.equal(this.$().text().trim(), '€1.99', 'Value is formatted with €');
});