Evaluating Javascript in an NUnit test

Adam Esterline posted his solution to javascript testing. He uses WatiN to run tests, which I wasn't excited about; I was hoping for a way to test where I didn't have to install any more software anywhere. Here's the solution I came up with:

static object Evaluator(string code )
{

ICodeCompiler compiler;

compiler = new JScriptCodeProvider().CreateCompiler();
CompilerParameters parameters;

parameters = new CompilerParameters();
parameters.GenerateInMemory = true;
parameters.GenerateExecutable = true;

parameters.ReferencedAssemblies.Add(Assembly.GetExecutingAssembly().Location);

CompilerResults results;

results = compiler.CompileAssemblyFromSource(parameters, code);
if (results.Errors.Count > 0)
     throw new Exception(results.Errors[0 ].ErrorText);

Assembly assembly = results.CompiledAssembly;

MethodInfo entryPoint = assembly.EntryPoint;

return entryPoint.Invoke(null, new object[] { null } );

}

[Test]
public void EvaluatorTest()
{
  Evaluator( "Context.Current.Data = \"Craig\"" );
  Assert.AreEqual( "Craig", Context.Current.Data );
}

This seems elegant and able to handle a lot of things like side effects. Unfortunately I've been back on the server side for the most part and haven't really tried to put this code through its paces.

Javascript testing with NUnit

I've been looking around for a good way to test Javascript functions.

There are at least two if not more versions of JSUnit, one here and the other here. But there is one fundamental requirement I have for any unit testing framework, and that is that it has to integrate into an automated build script. For example, suppose you're using CruiseControl. It's got an NUnit step in it; once you write up your tests, it's the matter of a few minutes' configuration to get them running as part of the build, and it's very satisfying to watch the test counts grow as more builds are done. 117 tests run, no failures. 123 tests run, no failures. 135 tests run, no failures.

So if the framework doesn't work with automated builds, it's no good to me. Do they? I'm not sure. Edward Hieatt's version seems primarily to require a browser, although he does provide a JSUnit Server which appears to be designed to work from Ant or Java, but doesn't have any particular support for Nant or ASP.Net that I could find. Jörg Schaible's version is even less able to work in Windows; starting from the download which is only provided in tar.gz format. The documentation states that it can be run from the command line; if so that's easily adaptable to an automated build, but I didn't even take the trouble to download it, suspecting that it wouldn't even run on Windows.

So I was looking around for other alternatives, and I ran across this post. I'm sure that not everything you can write in Javascript can be evaluated by the .Net Javascript evaluator, but when you write a lot of tests you get used to keeping functionality nicely isolated.

I'm not sure what the best way to use this is. My first couple of tests have the Javascript in the ASP.Net codebehind file, where they can be unit tested at test time and Response.Write-n at runtime; but there's a few other possibilities; keeping all the Javascript in a separate file to be read in at test time, and using it as an include at runtime perhaps.

So I have a lot of work to do on this technique. But it seems promising!