proxyquire

Proxies nodejs's require in order to make overriding dependencies during testing easy while staying totally unobstrusive.

If you want to stub dependencies for your client side modules, try proxyquireify, a proxyquire for browserify v2.

Features

no changes to your code are necessary
non overriden methods of a module behave like the original
mocking framework agnostic, if it can stub a function then it works with proxyquire
"use strict" compliant

Example

foo.js:

var path = require('path');

module.exports.extnameAllCaps = function (file) { 
  return path.extname(file).toUpperCase();
};

module.exports.basenameAllCaps = function (file) { 
  return path.basename(file).toUpperCase();
};

foo.test.js:

var proxyquire =  require('proxyquire')
  , assert     =  require('assert')
  , pathStub   =  { };

// when no overrides are specified, path.extname behaves normally
var foo = proxyquire('./foo', { 'path': pathStub });
assert.equal(foo.extnameAllCaps('file.txt'), '.TXT');

// override path.extname
pathStub.extname = function (file) { return 'Exterminate, exterminate the ' + file; };

// path.extname now behaves as we told it to
assert.equal(foo.extnameAllCaps('file.txt'), 'EXTERMINATE, EXTERMINATE THE FILE.TXT');

// path.basename and all other path module methods still function as before
assert.equal(foo.basenameAllCaps('/a/b/file.txt'), 'FILE.TXT');

Table of Contents generated with DocToc

Usage
API
- Preventing call thru to original dependency
- Examples
Backwards Compatibility for proxyquire v0.3.x
More Examples

Usage

Two simple steps to override require in your tests:

add var proxyquire = require('proxyquire'); to top level of your test file
proxyquire(...) the module you want to test and pass along stubs for modules you want to override

API

proxyquire({string} request, {Object} stubs)

request: path to the module to be tested e.g., ../lib/foo
stubs: key/value pairs of the form { modulePath: stub, ... }
- module paths are relative to the tested module not the test file
- therefore specify it exactly as in the require statement inside the tested file
- values themselves are key/value pairs of functions/properties and the appropriate override

Preventing call thru to original dependency

By default proxyquire calls the function defined on the original dependency whenever it is not found on the stub.

If you prefer a more strict behavior you can prevent callThru on a per module or contextual basis.

If callThru is disabled, you can stub out modules that don't even exist on the machine that your tests are running on. While I wouldn't recommend this in general, I have seen cases where it is legitimately useful (e.g., when requiring global environment configs in json format that may not be available on all machines).

Prevent call thru on path stub:

var foo = proxyquire('./foo', {
  path: {
      extname: function (file) { ... }
    , '@noCallThru': true
  }
});

Prevent call thru for all future stubs resolved by a proxyquire instance

// all stubs resolved by proxyquireStrict will not call through by default
var proxyquireStrict = require('proxyquire').noCallThru();

// all stubs resolved by proxyquireNonStrict will call through by default
var proxyquireNonStrict = require('proxyquire');

Re-enable call thru for all future stubs resolved by a proxyquire instance

proxyquire.callThru();

Call thru config per module wins:

var foo = proxyquire
    .noCallThru()
    .load('./foo', {

        // no calls to original './bar' methods will be made
        './bar' : { toAtm: function (val) { ... } }

        // for 'path' module they will be made
      , path: { 
          extname: function (file) { ... } 
        , '@noCallThru': false
        }
    });

All together, now

var proxyquire = require('proxyquire').noCallThru();

// all methods for foo's dependencies will have to be stubbed out since proxyquire will not call through
var foo = proxyquire('./foo', stubs);

proxyquire.callThru();

// only some methods for foo's dependencies will have to be stubbed out here since proxyquire will now call through
var foo2 = proxyquire('./foo', stubs);

Examples

We are testing foo which depends on bar:

// bar.js module
module.exports = { 
    toAtm: function (val) { return  0.986923267 * val; }
};

// foo.js module 
// requires bar which we will stub out in tests
var bar = require('./bar');
[ ... ]

Tests:

// foo-test.js module which is one folder below foo.js (e.g., in ./tests/)

/*
 *   Option a) Resolve and override in one step:
 */
var foo = proxyquire('../foo', {
  './bar': { toAtm: function (val) { return 0; /* wonder what happens now */ } }
});

// [ .. run some tests .. ]

/*
 *   Option b) Resolve with empty stub and add overrides later
 */
var barStub = { };

var foo =  proxyquire('../foo', { './bar': barStub });

// Add override
bar.toAtm = function (val) { return 0; /* wonder what happens now */ };

[ .. run some tests .. ]

// Change override
bar.toAtm = function (val) { return -1 * val; /* or now */ };

[ .. run some tests .. ]

// Resolve foo and override multiple of its dependencies in one step - oh my!
var foo = proxyquire('./foo', {
    './bar' : { 
      toAtm: function (val) { return 0; /* wonder what happens now */ } 
    }
  , path    : { 
      extname: function (file) { return 'exterminate the name of ' + file; } 
    }
});

Backwards Compatibility for proxyquire v0.3.x

To upgrade your project from v0.3.x to v0.4.x, a nifty compat function has been included.

Simply do a global find and replace for require('proxyquire') and change them to require('proxyquire').compat().

This returns an object that wraps the result of proxyquire() that provides exactly the same API as v0.3.x.

If your test scripts relied on the fact that v0.3.x stored noCallThru in the module scope, you can use require('proxyquire').compat(true) to use a global compat object, instead.

More Examples

For more examples look inside the examples folder or look through the tests

Specific Examples:

test async APIs synchronously: examples/async.
using proxyquire with Sinon.JS: examples/sinon.

playerjamesbattleground / proxyquire