Testing jQuery UI "Dialog" logic using Jasmine - unit-testing

Question

In my JS view-code I am using a jQuery UI Dialog component to render a popup.
I instantiate it like this:
var popupDialog = $("#myPopupDiv").dialog({
title: "My dialog",
dialogClass: "myDialogClass",
create: createHandler,
draggable: false,
width: width,
height: height,
autoOpen: false
});
Notice it's got autoOpen set to "false". I open it in the "create"-handler:
var createHandler = function(event, ui) {
//Vi venter litt for å sikre at popupen er "klar"
setTimeout(function () {
popupDialog.dialog("open");
}, 5);
};
The open-logic is wrapped in a setTimeout to ensure the popup is ready.
The code works fine in app the browser, but when I run this code using Jasmine test-framework I get an error:
Error: cannot call methods on dialog prior to initialization; attempted to call method 'open'
The test actually passes, so clearly the item is rendered. But I don't like the error showing up when I run the tests!
I suspect that since the Jasmine tests run so fast, the component has not had time to initialize itself. So how can I assure that the component is initialized? I thought putting this logic in the "create"-handler would take care of that since that event is "Triggered when the dialog is created.", but clearly that is not the case.
Here is how I test it:
it("should show my popup", function () {
var myPopupLink = $('.popupLink');
myPopupLink.click();
//Wait until popup is shown
waitsFor(function () {
return !$('.myDialogClass').is(":hidden");
}, "Popupen didn't show", 1000);
//Check that the DOM is as expected
expect($('.myDialogClass .popupContentDiv')).toExist();
expect(...
//Close popup
myPopupLink.click();
expect($('.myDialogClass .popupContentDiv')).not.toExist();
});
Anybody have a clue how I can verify the initialization-status of the popup-dialog?
Or any other workarounds?
Thanks!

Answer 1

The problem with your test is, that it is more an acceptance test then a unit test. Most of stuff that you try to test is functionality of jQueryUi. What you really wanna test is that the createHandler opened the dialog with a delay. So your popupDialog.dialog should be a spy where you can check that it was called after the delay.
At the moment your code is really hard to test cause it is based directly on jquery. You should think about to have functions where you can inject your depenedencies instead of relying on global variables like popupDialog.
Here is an example on how to mock out all dependencies:
//mock out setTimeout so you dont have to wait in your test
jasmine.Clock.useMock();
//create a mock that will return from $().dialog()
var mockDialog = jasmine.createSpy('dialog');
// mock $ to return {dialog: mock that return {dialog: mockDialog}}
var mock$ = spyOn(window, '$').andReturn({
dialog:jasmine.createSpy('$').andReturn({
dialog: mockDialog
})
})
expect(mock$).toHaveBeenCalled();
// call the create function
window[mock$.mostRecentCall.args[0].create]();
jasmine.Clock.tick(4999);
expect(mockDialog$).not.toHaveBeenCalled();
jasmine.Clock.tick(5001);
expect(mockDialog$).toHaveBeenCalledWith('open');
As you can see its very complicated to mock out all the jQuery dependencies. So ether you rewrite your code for better testability or test this stuff as acceptance test with selenium capybara etc.