Write integration tests like a pro (Node,Express,MongoDB,chai)

Sure, here is a blog post on backend integration testing with Node.js, Express, and MongoDB.

Introduction

Integration testing is an important part of any backend web development process. It is the process of testing how the different components of a web application interact with each other. It involves testing the application's APIs, database connections, and external services to ensure they are working together as expected. In this blog post, we will learn how to write backend integration tests with Node.js, Express, and MongoDB.

Prerequisites

Before we dive into the code, there are a few prerequisites we need to take care of:

• Node.js and npm should be installed on your machine.

• A MongoDB instance should be running locally or remotely.

• A basic understanding of Node.js and Express is recommended.

Setting up the project

Let's start by creating a new Node.js project and installing the necessary dependencies:

mkdir integration-testing
cd integration-testing
npm init -y
npm install express mongoose body-parser dotenv
npm install --save-dev mocha chai supertest

In this example, we are using Express to create a simple web server, Mongoose as our database ORM, and supertest as our HTTP request library for testing.

Create a new file named server.js in the root directory of the project, and add the following code:

const express = require('express');
const bodyParser = require('body-parser');
const mongoose = require('mongoose');
require('dotenv').config();

const app = express();
const port = process.env.PORT || 3000;
const mongoURI = process.env.MONGO_URI;

app.use(bodyParser.json());

mongoose.connect(mongoURI, { useNewUrlParser: true, useUnifiedTopology: true })
  .then(() => console.log('Connected to MongoDB'))
  .catch(err => console.log(err));

app.get('/', (req, res) => {
  res.json({ message: 'Hello World!' });
});

app.listen(port, () => {
  console.log(`Server is listening on port ${port}`);
});

module.exports = app;

The above code sets up a basic Express server and connects it to MongoDB using the Mongoose ORM.

Create a new file named index.js in the root directory of the project and add the following code:

const app = require('./server');

const port = process.env.PORT || 3000;

app.listen(port, () => {
  console.log(`Server is listening on port ${port}`);
});

This file simply starts the server when we run the application.

Writing the test suite

Now that we have set up the project, let's create a test directory and add our integration tests. Create a new directory named test in the root directory of the project, and create a new file named test.js in it.

Add the following code to the test.js file:

const app = require('../server');
const mongoose = require('mongoose');
const chai = require('chai');
const chaiHttp = require('chai-http');
const expect = chai.expect;

chai.use(chaiHttp);

describe('Integration Tests', () => {
  before((done) => {
    mongoose.connect(process.env.MONGO_URI_TEST, { useNewUrlParser: true, useUnifiedTopology: true })
      .then(() => {
        console.log('Connected to Test Database');
        done();
      })
      .catch(err => console.log(err));
  });

  after((done) => {
    mongoose.connection.db.dropDatabase(() => {
      mongoose.connection.close(done);
    });
  });

  describe('GET /', () => {
    it('should return a welcome message', (done) => {
      chai.request(app)
        .get('/')
        .end((err, res) =>