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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 rendering tests, but can also be tested with unit tests. Rendering 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 { helper } from '@ember/component/helper';

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 helper(formatCurrency);

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

Helpers are functions, which can be easily tested through module alone.

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', function(hooks) {
  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 a more complex test case that ensures our helper is rendered correctly as well. This can be done with the setupRenderingTest helper, as shown in Testing Components.

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

import { module, test } from 'qunit';
import { setupRenderingTest } from 'my-app-name/tests/helpers';
import { render } from '@ember/test-helpers';
import { hbs } from 'ember-cli-htmlbars';

module('Integration | Helper | format currency', function(hooks) {
  setupRenderingTest(hooks);

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

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

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

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

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

import { module, test } from 'qunit';
import { setupRenderingTest } from 'my-app-name/tests/helpers';
import { render } from '@ember/test-helpers';
import { hbs } from 'ember-cli-htmlbars';

module('Integration | Helper | format currency', function(hooks) {
  setupRenderingTest(hooks);

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

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

    assert.equal(this.element.textContent.trim(), '$1.99');

    this.set('sign', '€');

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