Question: testing validation with resources

[bassettsj]

So I wanted to make sure the validations were working in the defined resources. What do you think a good test would be for that?

  it('validates data before creation', function () {
    var invalidEvnt = angular.extend(testEvnt, {
      startDate: false // must be a Date object and must be less than endDate.
    });
    // Have to return something here;
    DS.expectCreate('evnt', invalidEvnt).respond(new Error('invalid'));

    Evnt.create(invalidEvnt).then(function (result) {
      fail('should have rejected');
    }, function (err) {
       //This will just return the error I created, thus the test is a little useless.
    });
  });

[jmdobry]

You're right, that test is useless.

If the test isn't useful without the functionality of the real data store, then the test needs to use the real data store.

The mock data store is useful when you want to test your own logic (the validate function), ignoring what the real data store would do (save to localStorage, make an http request, etc.). You didn't post your resource definition, but I'm guessing it's something like:

function validateEvnt(resourceName, attrs, cb) {
  if (!angular.isDate(attrs.startDate) || attrs.startDate < attrs.endDate) {
    cb('startDate must be a date and less than endDate!');
  } else {
    cb(null, attrs);
  }
}

var Evnt = DS.defineResource({
  name: 'evnt',
  validate: validateEvnt
});

So to test that your validate function does what it should:

it('should validate', function () {
  validateEvnt({
    startDate: false
  }, function (err, attrs) {
    assert.equal(err, 'startDate must be a date and less than endDate!');
  });
});

If you want to test that angular-data calls your validate function like it should, then you're welcome to contribute to angular-data's tests.

If you really want to test your validation function's integration with angular-data, then that test will need to use the real data store. All of the methods in angular-data-mocks are stubs.