Does mockjax provide more functionality then sinon.js for faking ajax call?

Question

I can fake ajax with both of these tools. Sinon allow to create stub/spy/mock that come handy for testing and mockjax doesn't. When it come to faking ajax call, does mockjax provide more features then Sinon? Cause if it doesn't, there is no point is using both of them.

var response = [];
var statusCode = 200;
var responseTime = 0;

Example how to fake ajax call with mockjax :

$.mockjax({
    url: server_api_url + "/Something/GetData",
    status: statusCode,
    responseTime: responseTime,
    contentType: "application/json",
    responseText: response
});

Example how to fake ajax call with Sinon.js :

var def = $.Deferred();
var stubGetData = sinon.stub(serverApiForSomething, "GetData");
def.resolve(response);
stubGetData.returns(def);

Where serverApiForSomething is a global class that encapsulate ajax call.

ServerApiForSomething = function()
{
    var self = this;
    self.GetData = function(param)
    {
        var ajaxOption = 
        {
            url:server_Api_Url + "/Something/GetData",
            type: "GET",
            data: { param.toJSON() },
            contentType: "application/json",
            dataType: "json"
        }
        return $.ajax(ajaxOption);
    }
}

serverApiForSomething = new ServerApiForSomething();

score 1 · Answer 1 · answered Dec 14 '15 at 15:29

I'm the maintainer of the Mockjax plugin. I would agree with @AXMIM's comments that Mockjax has some cool built-in features specifically for mocking ajax calls, but it also is only intended to be used with jQuery, where as Sinon can be used with any framework (but doesn't have quite as many built-in cool things).

That said, looking at your code, you are not really mocking an Ajax call with that Sinon code, you're mocking out the GetData method. That's cool too, but not really the point of Mockjax, which is take the Ajax call out of the picture but leave everything else in place. The proper comparison is using Sinon's FakeServer feaure.

Really, you can use both, if you like the syntax of Mockjax better, then use that for mocking Ajax, and use Sinon to spy on the success and error handlers.

Yes, you are are right. I'm technically not mocking ajax with Sinon. For better understanding, I added detail in question so people know what I mean. Basically, all my ajax call are encapsulated within class. After that, I just stub/mock the method of the class. — AXMIM, Dec 14 '15 at 21:18

score 0 · Answer 2 · answered Oct 23 '15 at 19:12

Draft answer
While both can fake ajax call, mockjax provide more build-in feature. However, those feature are really about "ajax call" and are quite too much if you only need to fake ajax call with basic "succeeded"/"failed" behaviour.

For example, with mockjax, you can

set the response status "404, 200, 500, etc".
randomize the time it's take to response
timeout the call
etc

See mockjax documentation here
With mockjax you can also find all ajax call that were made without being faked. This is really usefull.

So, unless you need to fake more then failure/success and the value returned, sinon is quite enough and easier to use as you don't need to bother with route and other related stuff.

Does mockjax provide more functionality then sinon.js for faking ajax call?

2 Answers2