agent.auth before each test in a describe block

Question

The following works:

describe('My App', function() {
  describe('when logged in', function() {
    it('should allow registered user to make a thing', function(done) {
      agent.post('/make-a-thing')
      .auth('testusername', 'validuserpass')
      .send({thingName:'mythingname'})
      .expect(201)
      .end(function(err, res) {
        if (err) return done(err);
        res.body.should.have.property('thingUrl').and.to.match(/thing\/[0-9a-f]+$/);
        done();
      });
    });
  });
});

Now, if I want to add more and more tests to the "when logged in" block, I don't want to repeat the .auth('testusername', 'validuserpass') line every time. I should put the auth code in the beforeEach, because that's what beforeEach is for.

So I tried this:

describe("My App", function() {

  describe('when logged out', function() {
    it('should disallow anonymous user from doing things', function(done) {
      agent.post('/do-things')
      .send({thingName:'mythingname'})
      .expect(403)
      .end(function(err, res) {
        if (err) return done(err);
        done();
      });
    });
  });

  describe('when invalid user', function() {
    beforeEach(function(done) {
      agent.auth('invalidusername', 'invaliduserpass');
      done();
    });

    it('should disallow unrecognized user from doing things', function(done) {
      agent.post('/do-things')
      .send({thingName:'mythingname'})
      .expect(403)
      .end(function(err, res) {
        if (err) return done(err);
        done();
      });
    });
  })

  describe('when logged in', function() {
    beforeEach(function(done) {
      agent.auth('testusername', 'validuserpass');
      done();
    });

    it('should allow registered user to make a thing', function(done) {
      agent.post('/make-a-thing')
      .send({thingName:'mythingname'})
      .expect(201)
      .end(function(err, res) {
        if (err) return done(err);
        res.body.should.have.property('thingUrl').and.to.match(/thing\/[0-9a-f]+$/);
        done();
      });
    });

    it('should require name attribute to create a thing', function(done) {
      agent.post('/make-a-thing')
      .send({notaname:'notathingname'})
      .expect(409)
      .expect('Content-Type', /json/)
      .end(function(err, res) {
        if (err) return done(err);
        done();
      });
    });
  });

});

What happens is agent.auth is not defined. I think the auth method is defined in the result of auth.post.

Is there a way to do this?

score 0 · Answer 1 · answered Sep 27 '14 at 15:28

For the record, here's what I did to solve this. I modified supertest's agent object and the Request prototype. agent now has a method called auth which causes Request.end to call auth first before ending, then reverts Request.end back to its original state.

configure.js

var app = require('app'),
    supertest = require('supertest');

// global
agent = supertest.agent(app);

(function(Request) {
  'use strict';

  (function(_end) {
    agent.auth = function() {
      var authArgs = arguments;
      Request.end = function() {
        var endArgs = arguments;
        var endResult = _end.apply(this.auth.apply(this, authArgs), endArgs);
        Request.end = _end;
        return endResult;
      };
      return agent;
    };
  })(Request.end);
})(agent.post('').constructor.prototype);

app-test.js

describe("My App", function() {

  describe('when logged out', function() {
    it('should disallow anonymous user from doing things', function(done) {
      agent.post('/do-things')
      .send({thingName:'mythingname'})
      .expect(403)
      .end(function(err, res) {
        if (err) return done(err);
        done();
      });
    });
  });

  describe('when invalid user', function() {
    beforeEach(function(done) {
      agent.auth('invalidusername', 'invaliduserpass');
      done();
    });

    it('should disallow unrecognized user from doing things', function(done) {
      agent.post('/do-things')
      .send({thingName:'mythingname'})
      .expect(403)
      .end(function(err, res) {
        if (err) return done(err);
        done();
      });
    });
  })

  describe('when logged in', function() {
    beforeEach(function(done) {
      agent.auth('testusername', 'validuserpass');
      done();
    });

    it('should allow registered user to make a thing', function(done) {
      agent.post('/make-a-thing')
      .send({thingName:'mythingname'})
      .expect(201)
      .end(function(err, res) {
        if (err) return done(err);
        res.body.should.have.property('thingUrl').and.to.match(/thing\/[0-9a-f]+$/);
        done();
      });
    });

    it('should require name attribute to create a thing', function(done) {
      agent.post('/make-a-thing')
      .send({notaname:'notathingname'})
      .expect(409)
      .expect('Content-Type', /json/)
      .end(function(err, res) {
        if (err) return done(err);
        done();
      });
    });
  });

});

My tests are run like this, so the configure script is executed first:

mocha tests/configure.js tests/*-test.js

agent.auth before each test in a describe block

1 Answers1