javascript - Injecting a mock into an AngularJS service

Question

I have an AngularJS service written and I would like to unit test it.

angular.module('myServiceProvider', ['fooServiceProvider', 'barServiceProvider']).
    factory('myService', function ($http, fooService, barService) {

    this.something = function() {
        // Do something with the injected services
    };

    return this;
});

My app.js file has these registered:

angular
.module('myApp', ['fooServiceProvider','barServiceProvider','myServiceProvider']
)

I can test the DI is working as such:

describe("Using the DI framework", function() {
    beforeEach(module('fooServiceProvider'));
    beforeEach(module('barServiceProvider'));
    beforeEach(module('myServiceProvder'));

    var service;

    beforeEach(inject(function(fooService, barService, myService) {
        service=myService;
    }));

    it("can be instantiated", function() {
        expect(service).not.toBeNull();
    });
});

This proved that the service can be created by the DI framework, however next I want to unit test the service, which means mocking out the injected objects.

How do I go about doing this?

I've tried putting my mock objects in the module, e.g.

beforeEach(module(mockNavigationService));

and rewriting the service definition as:

function MyService(http, fooService, barService) {
    this.somthing = function() {
        // Do something with the injected services
    };
});

angular.module('myServiceProvider', ['fooServiceProvider', 'barServiceProvider']).
    factory('myService', function ($http, fooService, barService) { return new MyService($http, fooService, barService); })

But the latter seems to stop the service being created by the DI as all.

Does anybody know how I can mock the injected services for my unit tests?

Thanks

David

Answer 1

You can inject mocks into your service by using $provide.

If you have the following service with a dependency that has a method called getSomething:

angular.module('myModule', [])
  .factory('myService', function (myDependency) {
        return {
            useDependency: function () {
                return myDependency.getSomething();
            }
        };
  });

You can inject a mock version of myDependency as follows:

describe('Service: myService', function () {

  var mockDependency;

  beforeEach(module('myModule'));

  beforeEach(function () {

      mockDependency = {
          getSomething: function () {
              return 'mockReturnValue';
          }
      };

      module(function ($provide) {
          $provide.value('myDependency', mockDependency);
      });

  });

  it('should return value from mock dependency', inject(function (myService) {
      expect(myService.useDependency()).toBe('mockReturnValue');
  }));

});

Note that because of the call to $provide.value you don't actually need to explicitly inject myDependency anywhere. It happens under the hood during the injection of myService. When setting up mockDependency here, it could just as easily be a spy.

Thanks to loyalBrown for the link to that great video.