How to Test a Global Event Bus With Vue Test Utils

Question

I am trying to learn how to test events emitted through a global Event Bus. Here's the code with some comments in the places I don't know what to do.

// EvtBus.js
import Vue from 'vue';
export const EvtBus = new Vue();

<!-- CouponCode.vue -->
<template>
    <div>
        <input
            class="coupon-code"
            type="text"
            v-model="code"
            @input="validate">
        <p v-if="valid">
            Coupon Redeemed: {{ message }}
        </p>
    </div>
</template>

<script>

import { EvtBus } from '../EvtBus.js';

export default {
    data () {
        return {
            code: '',
            valid: false,

            coupons: [
                {
                    code: '50OFF',
                    discount: 50,
                    message: '50% Off!'
                },
                {
                    code: 'FREE',
                    discount: 100,
                    message: 'Entirely Free!'
                }
            ]
        };
    },

    created () {
        EvtBus.$on('coupon-applied', () => {
            //console.info('had a coupon applied event on component');
        });
    },

    methods: {
        validate () {
            // Extract the coupon codes into an array and check if that array
            // includes the typed in coupon code.
            this.valid = this.coupons.map(coupon => coupon.code).includes(this.code);
            if (this.valid) {
                this.$emit('applied');
                // I NEVER see this on the coupon-code.spec.js
                EvtBus.$emit('coupon-applied');
            }
        }
    },

    computed: {
        message () {
            return this.coupons.find(coupon => coupon.code === this.code).message;
        }
    }
}
</script>

// tests/coupon-code.spec.js
import expect from 'expect';
import { mount } from '@vue/test-utils';
import CouponCode from '../src/components/CouponCode.vue';
import { EvtBus } from '../src/EvtBus.js';

describe('Reminders', () => {
    let wrp;

    beforeEach(() => {
        wrp = mount(CouponCode);
    });

    it('broadcasts the percentage discount when a valid coupon code is applied', () => {
        let code = wrp.find('input.coupon-code');
        code.element.value = '50OFF';
        code.trigger('input');

        console.log(wrp.emitted('applied'));

        //
        // I NEVER see this on the outpout.
        // How can I test it through a global event bus rather than
        // an event emitted from the component instance?
        //
        EvtBus.$on('coupon-applied', () => {
            console.log('coupon was applied through event bus');
        });

        // Passes, but not using EvtBus instance.
        expect(wrp.emitted('applied')).toBeTruthy;

    });
});

So, my doubt is how to test that the global event bus is emitting and listening to events inside components that use that event bus.

So, is it possible to test the global Event Bus using Vue Test Utils or I should use another approach?

Answer 1

Unit tests should focus on testing a single component in isolation. In this case, you want to test if the event is emitted, since that is the job of CouponCode.vue. Remember, unit tests should focus on testing the smallest units of code, and only test one thing at a time. In this case, we care that the event is emitted -- EventBus.test.js is where we test what happens when the event is emitted.

Noe that toBeTruthy is a function - you need (). expect(wrp.emitted('applied')).toBeTruthy is actually not passing, since you need () - at the moment, it is actually doing nothing -- no assertion is made.

What your assertion should look like is:

expect(wrp.emitted('applied')).toBeTruthy()

You can go one step further, and ensure it was only emitted once by doing something like expect(wrp.emitted().applied.length).toBe(1).

You then test InputBus in isolation, too. If you can post the code for that component, we can work through how to test it.

I worked on a big Vue app recently and contributed a lot to the main repo and documentation, so I'm happy to help out wherever I can.

Let me know if that helps or you need more guidance. If possible, post EventBus.vue as well.

Answer 2

Well,

EvtBus.$on('coupon-applied', () => {
    console.log('coupon was applied through event bus');
});

This code in your spec file won't be called because the mounted wrp component is not using the same EvtBus you are importing in your spec file above.

What you require to test this is an npm package named inject-loader so that you can provide your own implementation(stub) of the EvtBus dependency of your coupon code component.

Somewhat like this

const couponCodeInjector = require('!!vue-loader?inject!src/views/CouponCode');

const stubbedModules = {
   '../EvtBus.js': {
        $on : sandbox.spy((evtName, cb) => cb()); 
    }
};

const couponCode = couponCodeInjector(stubbedModules);

and then in your unit test you can assert whether the stubbedModules['../EvtBus.js'].$on has been called or not when code.trigger('input');

PS: I haven't used vue-test-utils. So I don't know exactly how to the stubbing with this npm package.

But the main thing you need to do is to find a way to stub your EvtBus dependency in the CouponCode component in such a way that you can apply a spy on it and check whether that spy has been called or not.

Answer 3

I got the same issue with vue-test-utils and Jest. For me, createLocalVue() of vue-test-utils library fixed the issue. This function creates a local copy of Vue to use when mounting the component. Installing plugins on this copy of Vue prevents polluting the original Vue copy. (https://vue-test-utils.vuejs.org/api/options.html#localvue)

Adding this to your test file will fix the issue:

const EventBus = new Vue();

const GlobalPlugins = {
  install(v) {
    // Event bus
    v.prototype.$bus = EventBus;
  },
};

// create a local instance of the global bus
const localVue = createLocalVue();
localVue.use(GlobalPlugins);

Answer 4

jest.mock('@/main', () => ({
  $emit: jest.fn(),
}));

Include this in code in your spec file at the very begining.

Note: '@/main' is the file from which you are importing Event Bus.

Answer 5

If component is using global EventBus, eg that's imported outside of given component and assigned to window.EventBus, then it's possible to use global Vue instance to redirect $on or $emit events to wrapper's vm instance. That way you can proceed writing tests as if component is emitting via this.$emit instead of EventBus.$emit:

it('clicking "Settings" button emits "openSettings"', () => {
    global.EventBus = new Vue();
    global.EventBus.$on('openSettings', (data) => {
        wrapper.vm.$emit('openSettings', data);
    });

    // component emits `EventBus.$emit('openSettings')`

    expect(wrapper.emitted('openSettings')).toBeTruthy(); // pass
});