Mocha: Writing dependent tests - node.js

Question

I am using Mocha/Chai framework in NodeJS to write tests. They were supposed to be executed independently. Now the requirement is to execute them on conditions. For example, before you delete an employee make sure that employee is created in database. 'Create' & 'Delete' are two different APIs and although they will be executed separately, in case of 'Delete' I have to first call 'Create' API get the employeeId from its response and then execute 'Delete' for the same employeeId. What is the best way to write nested tests? This is how I write tests separately:
var _customHeaders = {
"authToken": "AVeryLargeStringWithActualToken"
};
describe('POST /Employee/Create', function() {
it('should create a new employee in database.', function(done) {
request
.get('/Employee/Create/')
.set(_customHeaders)
.send({ "firstName": "ABC", "lastName": "XYZ", "departmentId": 123 })
.expect(200)
.expect('Content-Type', 'application/json')
.end(function(err, res) {
expect(res.body.success).to.equal(true);
expect(res.body.message).to.equal('Employee Created!');
done();
});
});
});
describe('POST /Employee/Delete', function() {
it('should delete an employee from database.', function(done) {
request
.get('/Employee/Delete/')
.set(_customHeaders)
.send({ "employeeId": 123 })
.expect(200)
.expect('Content-Type', 'application/json')
.end(function(err, res) {
expect(res.body.success).to.equal(true);
expect(res.body.message).to.equal('Employee Deleted!');
done();
});
});
});
How can I write 'Delete' so that it first creates an Employee and then move forward to delete if 'Create' is successful?

Answer 1

If you need setup before your deletion test, where the necessary Employee is first created, then this should probably be in a 'beforeEach' hook inside your describe block for the deletion test/s. This should be completely separate from the test that actually tests the Employee creation (though common code could be factored out into a helper function). You may even want this setup code to put the employee directory into the database, rather than going through the REST API like the function which actually tests this operation.