How do I set a mock date in Jest?

Question

I'm using moment.js to do most of my date logic in a helper file for my React components but I haven't been able to figure out how to mock a date in Jest a la sinon.useFakeTimers().

The Jest docs only speak about timer functions like setTimeout, setInveral etc but don't help with setting a date and then checking that my date functions do what they're meant to do.

Here is some of my JS file:

var moment = require('moment');

var DateHelper = {

  DATE_FORMAT: 'MMMM D',
  API_DATE_FORMAT: 'YYYY-MM-DD',

  formatDate: function(date) {
    return date.format(this.DATE_FORMAT);
  },

  isDateToday: function(date) {
    return this.formatDate(date) === this.formatDate(moment());
  }
};

module.exports = DateHelper;

and here is what I've set up using Jest:

jest.dontMock('../../../dashboard/calendar/date-helper')
    .dontMock('moment');

describe('DateHelper', function() {
  var DateHelper = require('../../../dashboard/calendar/date-helper'),
      moment = require('moment'),
      DATE_FORMAT = 'MMMM D';

  describe('formatDate', function() {

    it('should return the date formatted as DATE_FORMAT', function() {
      var unformattedDate = moment('2014-05-12T00:00:00.000Z'),
          formattedDate = DateHelper.formatDate(unformattedDate);

      expect(formattedDate).toEqual('May 12');
    });

  });

  describe('isDateToday', function() {

    it('should return true if the passed in date is today', function() {
      var today = moment();

      expect(DateHelper.isDateToday(today)).toEqual(true);
    });

  });

});

Now these tests pass because I'm using moment and my functions use moment but it seems a bit unstable and I would like to set the date to a fixed time for the tests.

Any idea on how that could be accomplished?

Answer 1

Since momentjs uses Date internally, you can just overwrite the Date.now function to always return the same moment.

Date.now = jest.fn(() => 1487076708000) //14.02.2017

or

Date.now = jest.fn(() => new Date(Date.UTC(2017, 1, 14)).valueOf())

Answer 2

jest-date-mock is a complete javascript module wrote by me, and it is used to test Date on jest.

import { advanceBy, advanceTo } from 'jest-date-mock';

test('usage', () => {
  advanceTo(new Date(2018, 5, 27, 0, 0, 0)); // reset to date time.

  const now = Date.now();

  advanceBy(3000); // advance time 3 seconds
  expect(+new Date() - now).toBe(3000);

  advanceBy(-1000); // advance time -1 second
  expect(+new Date() - now).toBe(2000);

  clear();
  Date.now(); // will got current timestamp
});

Use the only 3 api for test cases.

• advanceBy(ms): advance date timestamp by ms.
• advanceTo([timestamp]): reset date to timestamp, default to 0.
• clear(): shut down the mock system.

Answer 3

MockDate can be used in jest tests to change what new Date() returns:

var MockDate = require('mockdate');
// I use a timestamp to make sure the date stays fixed to the ms
MockDate.set(1434319925275);
// test code here
// reset to native Date()
MockDate.reset();

Answer 4

For those who want to mock methods on a new Date object you can do the following:

beforeEach(() => {
    jest.spyOn(Date.prototype, 'getDay').mockReturnValue(2);
    jest.spyOn(Date.prototype, 'toISOString').mockReturnValue('2000-01-01T00:00:00.000Z');
});

afterEach(() => {
    jest.restoreAll()
});

Answer 5

Goal is to mock new Date() with a fixed date wherever it's used during the component rendering for test purposes. Using libraries will be a overhead if the only thing you want is to mock new Date() fn.

Idea is to store the global date to a temp variable, mock the global dae and then after usage reassign temp to global date.

export const stubbifyDate = (mockedDate: Date) => {
    /**
     * Set Date to a new Variable
     */
    const MockedRealDate = global.Date;

    /**
     *  Mock Real date with the date passed from the test
     */
    (global.Date as any) = class extends MockedRealDate {
        constructor() {
            super()
            return new MockedRealDate(mockedDate)
        }
    }

    /**
     * Reset global.Date to original Date (MockedRealDate) after every test
     */
    afterEach(() => {
        global.Date = MockedRealDate
    })
}

Usage in your test would be like

import { stubbyifyDate } from './AboveMethodImplementedFile'

describe('<YourComponent />', () => {
    it('renders and matches snapshot', () => {
        const date = new Date('2019-02-18')
        stubbifyDate(date)

        const component = renderer.create(
            <YourComponent data={}/>
        );
        const tree = component.toJSON();
        expect(tree).toMatchSnapshot();
    });
});

Answer 6

I just wanted to chime in here since no answer addressed the issue if you want to mock the Date object in only a specific suite.

You can mock it using the setup and teardown methods for each suite, jest docs

/**
 * Mocking Date for this test suite
 */
const globalDate = Date;

beforeAll(() => {
  // Mocked Date: 2020-01-08
  Date.now = jest.fn(() => new Date(Date.UTC(2020, 0, 8)).valueOf());
});

afterAll(() => {
  global.Date = globalDate;
});

Hope this helps!