itty-bitty-test

A teensy weensy test library for Node.js with a tiny test-runner too.

Design objectives

Very minimal. No run-time dependencies.
No checkers, instead use Node.js's built-in assert module, or use something like should.js or Chai if you must.
Does not corrupt the global namespace. Yes, almost every other testing library, I'm looking at you.

How to install

npm install --save-dev itty-bitty-test

Examples of use

Itty-bitty-test exposes three functions to help you write tests:

describe - A wrapper for tests (doesn't currently nest). Has a synonym: context. Has two parameters: a name, and a callback with no parameters (a 'thunk') that includes the tests.
it - is a test. Has a name and a thunk that includes the assertions.
reporter - runs the tests and reports their results

A simple test suite might look like the following (ES5):

var t = require("itty-bitty-test");
var assert = require("assert");

t.describe("A calculator", (function() {
  t.it("should be able to add", (function() {
    assert.equal((1 + 3), 4, "two plus two is four");
  }));
  t.it("should be able to multiply", (function() {
    return assert.equal((2 * 3), 6, "two times three is 6");
  }));
}));

t.reporter(console.log);

Of which the output looks like this:

✔ A calculator - should be able to add
✔ A calculator - should be able to multiply

Hacking on itty-bitty-test

You probably don't want to do this, because it was written in Sibilant.js, more as an experiment than anything else. If you really want to raise a PR, please feel free, but don't be surprised of I don't accept it because e.g.

Isn't written in Sibilant
You've 'helpfully' translated it to ES3/4/5/6/7/Next/Babel/CoffeeScript/TypeScript/Whatevs
Doesn't itself have tests, written using itty-bitty-test (obviously)
Isn't written in idiomatic Lisp (any of them)
Goes against any of the design principles as stated at the top of this page

As I said above, you probably don't want to do this... but if you decide to anyway, build the JS from ./src to ./lib with:

npm run build

and run the tests against the now built JS with:

npm test

Internal structure

A test is a function with a name. When a test is run it fails if it generates an exception (this is the behaviour of the built-in assert class) otherwise it succeeds. The result is stored in a results list.

A test result is a list:

String: "RESULT"
String: the name of the test
Boolean: Whether the test was successful
String: the failure message

Example test result:

[ "RESULT", "my first test", true, null]

A test suite result is a list:

String "SUITE"
String: the name of the suite
List: either test results or suites

Example suite result:

[ "SUITE", "A test suite", [...]]

Question: whether to use built-in assertions or to use own?

Assertions generate an error object that looks like:

{ 
  actual: false,
  expected: true,
  operator: '==',
  message: 'false == true',
  generatedMessage: true
}