javascript - Jest: How to mock one specific method of a class

Question

Let's suppose I have the following class:

export default class Person {
    constructor(first, last) {
        this.first = first;
        this.last = last;
    }
    sayMyName() {
        console.log(this.first + " " + this.last);
    }
    bla() {
        return "bla";
    }
}

Suppose I want to create a mocked class where method 'sayMyName' will be mocked and method 'bla' will stay as is.

The test I wrote is:

const Person = require("../Person");

jest.mock('../Person', () => {
    return jest.fn().mockImplementation(() => {
        return {sayMyName: () => {
            return 'Hello'
        }};
    });
});


let person = new Person();
test('MyTest', () => {
    expect(person.sayMyName()).toBe("Hello");
    expect(person.bla()).toBe("bla");
})

The first 'expect' statement passes, which means that 'sayMyName' was mocked successfully. But, the second 'expect' fails with the error:

TypeError: person.bla is not a function

I understand that the mocked class erased all methods. I want to know how to mock a class such that only specific method(s) will be mocked.

Answer 1

Using jest.spyOn() is the proper Jest way of mocking a single method and leaving the rest be. Actually there are two slightly different approaches to this.

1. Modify the method only in a single object

import Person from "./Person";

test('Modify only instance', () => {
    let person = new Person('Lorem', 'Ipsum');
    let spy = jest.spyOn(person, 'sayMyName').mockImplementation(() => 'Hello');

    expect(person.sayMyName()).toBe("Hello");
    expect(person.bla()).toBe("bla");

    // unnecessary in this case, putting it here just to illustrate how to "unmock" a method
    spy.mockRestore();
});

2. Modify the class itself, so that all the instances are affected

import Person from "./Person";

beforeAll(() => {
    jest.spyOn(Person.prototype, 'sayMyName').mockImplementation(() => 'Hello');
});

afterAll(() => {
    jest.restoreAllMocks();
});

test('Modify class', () => {
    let person = new Person('Lorem', 'Ipsum');
    expect(person.sayMyName()).toBe("Hello");
    expect(person.bla()).toBe("bla");
});

And for the sake of completeness, this is how you'd mock a static method:

jest.spyOn(Person, 'myStaticMethod').mockImplementation(() => 'blah');