Angular + Jasmine: beforeEach() syntax with module()

Question

Can you please explain how this line works:

beforeEach(module('phonecatApp'));

beforeEach() expects a callback function to call before each test. module() returns an angular.Module object.

What does beforeEach() do with an object?

Answer 1

If you look in the source of angular.mock.module you can see it either returns a function, or the result of a function, depending on whether a spec is running:

window.module = angular.mock.module = function() {
  var moduleFns = Array.prototype.slice.call(arguments, 0);
  return isSpecRunning() ? workFn() : workFn;
  /////////////////////
  function workFn() {
    ...

When beforeEach is called, I suspect this is treated as not being during a spec, so the function returns a callback that runs when the test runner later calls the callbacks registered with beforeEach.

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Also I don't see documented, or in the source, that it actually returns a module object. It apparently registers a module with the dependency injection system.