Automate Functional Testing in node.js - node.js

Question

I checked some NPM libraries to test a webpages or web-services. But all of them expect that the server is already running. Since I want to automate functional testing, how can I setup NPM package in such a way that
It can start the server
Test the application
Stop the server
So that I can test it locally, as well as on online CI tools like travis-ci or circleci.
Case 1: Webservice
I wrote a NPM package which starts nodejs HTTP(s) server. It can be started from command line $stubmatic. Currently, I use 2 approaches to test it,
manual : I manually start it from command line. Then run the tests.
Automatic: I use exec module to run a unix command which can start the application and run pkill command to kill the application. But for this automation, my application need to be installed on testing machine.
Case 2: Website
I have create a NPM package: fast-xml-parser and created a demo page within the repo so that I can be tested in the browser. To test the demo page, I currently start a local server using http-server npm package manually. Test the application.
What can be the better way to write automate functional tests for node js applications?
Note:
I never used task runners like gulp or grunt. So I'm not sure if they can help in this case.
In case 1, my application starts node js native HTTP server. I'm not using any 3rd party application like express currently.

Answer 1

This question mentions a new Docker container system for Travis that could be duplicated locally. It might be a way: How to run travis-ci locally

Answer 2

Did you look at supertest (SuperAgent driven library for testing HTTP servers) and expect (Assertions library)(documented here) with mocha (Test Framework)?
I use them and I never had any kind of problems for all the tests I do until now.
The documention in the links contains all the informations you need to build up your test.

Answer 3

Case 1: Webservice
Problem 1
As nodejs server.close() was not working. I copied paste this snippet in every test file which is starting my webservice.
try{
server.setup(options);
server.start();
}catch(err){
console.log(err);
}
Once all the tests are completed, server stops.
**Problem 2
I was using chai-http incorrectly. Here is the complete working solution.
//Need to be placed before importing chai and chai-http
if (!global.Promise) {
global.Promise = require('q');
}
var server = require('.././lib/server');
var chai = require('chai')
, chaiHttp = require('chai-http');
chai.use(chaiHttp);
try{
server.setup(someoptions);
server.start();
}catch(err){
console.log(err);
}
describe('FT', function () {
describe('scenario::', function () {
it('responds to POST', function (done) {
chai.request("http://localhost:9999")
.post('/someurl')
.then(res => {
expect(res.status).toBe(200);
//console.log(res.text);
done();
}).catch( err => {
console.log(err);
done();
});
});
});
Case 2: Website This was quite simple.
I used http-server to start the server so my html files can be accessed.
I used zombie js for browser testing. (There are many other options available for browser testing)
Here is the code
process.env.NODE_ENV = 'test';
const Browser = require('zombie');
const httpServer = require('http-server');
describe("DemoApp", function() {
var browser = new Browser({site: 'http://localhost:8080'});
var server = httpServer.createServer();
server.listen(8080);
beforeEach(function(done){
browser.visit('/', done);
});
describe("Parse XML", function() {
it("should parse xml to json", function(done) {
browser.pressButton('#submit');
browser.assert.text('#result', 'some result text');
done();
});
});
afterEach(function(){
server.close();
})
});