Access Native Node.js Modules within Intern

By  on  

Intern is an awesome unit and functional test suite from SitePen.  I've been using this utility extensively over the past year, writing tests to make sure MDN's front-end is in good shape after code merges and pushes.

Sometimes when writing tests I'll want to make use of a node module to accomplish a test task, like making an HTTP request or getting environment information.  It isn't as easy as making the same dependency path you would if you were writing a node module -- you're using the Dojo loader so you'll need to require those modules a bit differently:

define([
	'intern/dojo/node!http',
	'intern/dojo/node!process'
], function(http, process) { 

	// http and process now available from the Node.js environment

});

The dojo/node Dojo module gives your Intern test suite the ability to access native Node.js modules!

Recent Features

  • By
    Create a CSS Flipping Animation

    CSS animations are a lot of fun; the beauty of them is that through many simple properties, you can create anything from an elegant fade in to a WTF-Pixar-would-be-proud effect. One CSS effect somewhere in between is the CSS flip effect, whereby there's...

  • By
    Create a CSS Cube

    CSS cubes really showcase what CSS has become over the years, evolving from simple color and dimension directives to a language capable of creating deep, creative visuals.  Add animation and you've got something really neat.  Unfortunately each CSS cube tutorial I've read is a bit...

Incredible Demos

  • By
    Editable Content Using MooTools 1.2, PHP, and MySQL

    Everybody and their aerobics instructor wants to be able to edit their own website these days. And why wouldn't they? I mean, they have a $500 budget, no HTML/CSS experience, and extraordinary expectations. Enough ranting though. Having a website that allows for...

  • By
    MooTools Image Preloading with Progress Bar

    The idea of image preloading has been around since the dawn of the internet. When we didn't have all the fancy stuff we use now, we were forced to use ugly mouseover images to show dynamism. I don't think you were declared an official...

Discussion

  1. Seems like it’d be a lot easier to use the default require/exports/module style, so that your test module feels a lot more like Node. The above code could be written like so:

    define(function (require) {
      var http = require('intern/dojo/node!http');
      var process = require('intern/dojo/node!process');  
    });
    

    Still unfortunate that you have to go through intern/dojo/node but it works.

    It’s also in line with the conventions as prescribed in the Intern user guide at https://theintern.github.io/intern/#testing-commonjs-code

Wrap your code in <pre class="{language}"></pre> tags, link to a GitHub gist, JSFiddle fiddle, or CodePen pen to embed!