Loading external file from Karma/Jasmine test

Question

I'm trying to accomplish a Jasmine test (using Karma and IntelliJ 13) to validate JSON files. Ideally, my test would simply load a JSON file into a data object, then let me parse through to check for valid formatting and data. I don't need to validate functions before or after, nor do I need to test against a server.

My basic setup is like this:

it("should load an external file", function(){
var asyncCallComplete, result,
            _this = this;
        // asyncCallComplete is set to true when the ajax call is complete
        asyncCallComplete = false;

        // result stores the result of the successful ajax call
        result = null;

        // SECTION 1 - call asynchronous function
        runs(function() {
            return $.ajax('/test/config.json', {
                type: 'GET',
                success: function(data) {
                    asyncCallComplete = true;
                    result = data;
                },
                error: function() {
                    asyncCallComplete = true;
                }
            });
        });

        // SECTION 2 - wait for the asynchronous call to complete
        waitsFor(function() {
            return asyncCallComplete !== false;
        }, "async to complete");

        // SECTION 3 - perform tests
        return runs(function() {
            return expect(result).not.toBeNull();
        });
}

The problem is that no matter what path I use, I get a 404 error and the file won't load. I've tried loading an external JSON result from a remote server using this test service:

http://date.jsontest.com/

And this works.

My test file is named /test/mySpec.js and my karma.conf.js file is on the root. I have moved around the JSON file to all of these locations with no luck. What am I doing wrong?

UPDATE WITH ANSWER:

Per the answer below, I added this to my karma.conf.js:

// fixtures
{ pattern: 'test/*.json',
    watched: true,
    served:  true,
    included: false
}

Then, I wrote my test this way:

    var json:any;
    it("should load a fixture", function () {
        jasmine.getFixtures().fixturesPath = "base/test/"
        var f = readFixtures("registration.json");
        json = JSON.parse(f);
        expect(json).toBeDefined();

    })

    it("should have a title", function () {
        expect(json.title).toNotBe(null);
    })
    etc...

And it passes.

Answer 1

Serving JSON via the fixture is the easiest but because of our setup we couldn't do that easily so I wrote an alternative helper function:

Install

bower install karma-read-json

Usage

1. Put karma-read-json.js in your Karma files, Example:

   files = [
   ...
   'bower_components/karma-read-json/karma-read-json.js',
   ...
   ]
   

2. Make sure your JSON is being served by Karma, Example:

   files = [
   ...
   {pattern: 'json/**/*.json', included: false},
   ...
   ]
   

3. Use the readJSON function in your tests. Example:

   var valid_respond = readJSON('json/foobar.json');
   $httpBackend.whenGET(/.*/).respond(valid_respond);
   

Answer 2

Are you serving the JSON file via karma.config.js?

You can serve JSON files via fixture:

files: [
      // angular 
      'angular.min.js',
      'angular-route.js',
      'angular-mocks.js',

      // jasmine jquery helper
     'jquery-1.10.2.min.js',
     'jasmine-jquery.js',

      //  app
      '../../public/js/app.js',

      // tests
      '*-spec.js',

      // JSON fixture
      { pattern:  '/test/*.json',
        watched:  true,
        served:   true,
        included: false }
    ],

Answer 3

If you are trying to load a HTML file and want to avoid using jasmine-jquery, you may take advantage of the karma-ng-html2js-preprocessor.

In your karma.conf.js :

// generate js files from html templates
preprocessors: {
    'resources/*.html': 'ng-html2js'
},

files: [
    ...
    'resources/*.html'
],

plugins: [
    ...
    'karma-ng-html2js-preprocessor'
],

In your jasmine spec :

beforeEach(module('resources/fragment.html'));

var $templateCache;
beforeEach(inject(function (_$templateCache_) {
    $templateCache = _$templateCache_;
}));

describe('some test', function () {
    it('should do something', function () {
        // --> load the fragment.html content from the template cache <--
        var fragment = $templateCache.get('resources/fragment.html');
        expect(fragment).toBe(...);
    });
});

Answer 4

Have you tried simply requiring the json file and storing it as a global variable in your test?

I'm developing an Angular2 project right now (using the Angular CLI), and with this setup it works:

// On the very beginning of the file let mockConfig = require('./test/config.json');