expect
conditionally (no-conditional-expect
)This rule prevents the use of expect
in conditional blocks, such as if
s &
catch
s.
This includes using expect
in callbacks to functions named catch
, which are
assumed to be promises.
Jest only considers a test to have failed if it throws an error, meaning if
calls to assertion functions like expect
occur in conditional code such as a
catch
statement, tests can end up passing but not actually test anything.
Additionally, conditionals tend to make tests more brittle and complex, as they increase the amount of mental thinking needed to understand what is actually being tested.
While expect.assertions
& expect.hasAssertions
can help prevent tests from
silently being skipped, when combined with conditionals they typically result in
even more complexity being introduced.
The following patterns are warnings:
it('foo', () => {
doTest && expect(1).toBe(2);
});
it('bar', () => {
if (!skipTest) {
expect(1).toEqual(2);
}
});
it('baz', async () => {
try {
await foo();
} catch (err) {
expect(err).toMatchObject({ code: 'MODULE_NOT_FOUND' });
}
});
it('throws an error', async () => {
await foo().catch(error => expect(error).toBeInstanceOf(error));
});
The following patterns are not warnings:
it('foo', () => {
expect(!value).toBe(false);
});
function getValue() {
if (process.env.FAIL) {
return 1;
}
return 2;
}
it('foo', () => {
expect(getValue()).toBe(2);
});
it('validates the request', () => {
try {
processRequest(request);
} catch {
// ignore errors
} finally {
expect(validRequest).toHaveBeenCalledWith(request);
}
});
it('throws an error', async () => {
await expect(foo).rejects.toThrow(Error);
});
A common situation that comes up with this rule is when wanting to test
properties on a thrown error, as Jest's toThrow
matcher only checks the
message
property.
Most people write something like this:
describe('when the http request fails', () => {
it('includes the status code in the error', async () => {
try {
await makeRequest(url);
} catch (error) {
expect(error).toHaveProperty('statusCode', 404);
}
});
});
As stated above, the problem with this is that if makeRequest()
doesn't throw
the test will still pass as if the expect
had been called.
While you can use expect.assertions
& expect.hasAssertions
for these
situations, they only work with expect
.
A better way to handle this situation is to introduce a wrapper to handle the catching, and otherwise returns a specific "no error thrown" error if nothing is thrown by the wrapped function:
class NoErrorThrownError extends Error {}
const getError = async <TError>(call: () => unknown): Promise<TError> => {
try {
await call();
throw new NoErrorThrownError();
} catch (error: unknown) {
return error as TError;
}
};
describe('when the http request fails', () => {
it('includes the status code in the error', async () => {
const error = await getError(async () => makeRequest(url));
// check that the returned error wasn't that no error was thrown
expect(error).not.toBeInstanceOf(NoErrorThrownError);
expect(error).toHaveProperty('statusCode', 404);
});
});