Writing effective unit tests can be tricky in any language, and JavaScript apps often get neglected because testing UIs can be particularly tricky. While some of that can be solved by restructuring code and choosing tools that make everything more testable, it's also helpful to know some of the tricks of the JavaScript testing trade, like good mocking and stubbing practices. This playlist is full of tips for how to write tests that verify your code without any undesired side effects.

Unit testing functions that invoke callbacks can require a lot of setup code. Using `sinon.spy` to create a fake callback function can simplify your unit tests while still allowing you to observe the output of the function you're testing.

mocha

Unit Test a Function that Invokes a Callback with a Sinon Spy

When mocking a JavaScript function during a unit test, it can be helpful to force a mock function to return a value of your choosing. This allows you to verify that functions you're testing will behave correctly for every possible use case.

Much like [`sinon.spy()`](https://sinonjs.org/releases/v7.0.0/spies/), [`sinon.stub()`](https://sinonjs.org/releases/v7.0.0/stubs/) creates a mock function that prevents a real function from running. But, unlike `spy`, it also allows you to declare what value you'd like the mock function to return.

Mock a function's return value using a Sinon stub

When testing functions that make HTTP requests, it's not preferable for those requests to actually run. Using the `nock` JavaScript library, we can mock out HTTP requests so that they don't actually happen, control the responses from those requests, and assert when requests are made.

Mock an HTTP request using Nock while unit testing

Sometimes when writing a unit test, you know that the module you're testing imports a module that you would like to observe, or at the very least mock to prevent side effects like network activity or file system operations.

For JavaScript unit tests that run in Node, we can hijack the built-in `require` function by using the [`proxyquire`](https://www.npmjs.com/package/proxyquire) module, which allows us to mock one or more modules that are second-class dependencies in our unit test, replacing them with whatever we want.

This means we could replace functions with [no-ops](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NOP_%28code%29) to prevent side effects, or replace them with [Sinon spies](https://egghead.io/lessons/mocha-unit-test-a-function-that-invokes-a-callback-with-a-sinon-spy) to observe the inner workings of the module you're testing.

In this video, we'll demonstrate the basics of using Proxyquire to prevent and observe a file system operation.

Unit testing in JavaScript

Josh Mock

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