Bitplate

This is a boilerplate for unit testing Backbone applications in a continuous integration environment.

Requirements

You will need Node.js and Mocha installed on your continuous integration environment.

Installation

Once you have Node and Mocha installed, clone Bitplate:

git clone git@github.com:flashbackzoo/bitplate.git

Install the dependencies:

npm install

Set up the Backbone test application:

bower install && grunt

Running tests

Run tests from the bitplate/test directory with:

make test

Caveats

Here are some things to watch out for.

Using third party plugins

If you're using third party libraries that depend on jQuery (jQuery plugins) you may have to convert the plugin to AMD and pass in jQuery by dependency reference.

For example a plugin might be structured like this:

(function (window, $) {
	// Plugin code...
})(this, jQuery);

In the above example the plugin passes in this (a reference to window) and the jQuery object. In Node.js the plugin is loaded inside a closure which means this does not refer to window (Node.js has no concept of window or DOM anyway) and jQuery is undefined.

The solution is:

define([jquery], function ($) {
	// Plugin code...
});

Now jQuery is loaded by dependency reference. window is not required because in the test runner we assign a global jsdom object to window.

Using singletons

Testing singletons can be tricky. Because Node.js uses a different instance of RequireJS to the front-end application, a different instance of your singleton can be returned.

One way to get around this is attach a method that returns the singleton to the object you're testing.

Misc

Where Bitplate came from

Mocha TeamCity Reporter