Skip or Only Run a Test with JavaScript Mocha

By  on  

Whenever I start to feel anxiety about a big change I'm making, I start writing more unit tests. I'll write down my fear and then write a test that attacks, and eventually relaxes, that fear. There are two actions that I've been frequently using with test writing: skipping all but one test or single tests.

Skip a Test

Oftentimes I will create tests with empty bodies so that I don't forget to write them. To skip a test which is incomplete or known to fail, you can use xit:

xit('does the thing I want', () => {

});

Once the test is complete or ready to be applied, you can change xit back to it.

Run a Single Test

To run only a single test with the Mocha test framework, use it.only:

it.only('does the thing I want', () => {

});

it.only is especially helpful if you have a large test suite and just want the result of a work-in-progress test quickly.

Let's be honest: writing tests isn't very fun. Like taking your cousin to the school dance or changing a diaper. But test writing is important enough to save yourself, and more importantly, your users, from disaster.

Recent Features

  • By
    Facebook Open Graph META Tags

    It's no secret that Facebook has become a major traffic driver for all types of websites.  Nowadays even large corporations steer consumers toward their Facebook pages instead of the corporate websites directly.  And of course there are Facebook "Like" and "Recommend" widgets on every website.  One...

  • By
    LightFace:  Facebook Lightbox for MooTools

    One of the web components I've always loved has been Facebook's modal dialog.  This "lightbox" isn't like others:  no dark overlay, no obnoxious animating to size, and it doesn't try to do "too much."  With Facebook's dialog in mind, I've created LightFace:  a Facebook lightbox...

Incredible Demos

  • By
    MooTools onLoad SmoothScrolling

    SmoothScroll is a fantastic MooTools plugin but smooth scrolling only occurs when the anchor is on the same page. Making SmoothScroll work across pages is as easy as a few extra line of MooTools and a querystring variable. The MooTools / PHP Of course, this is a...

  • By
    Chris Coyier’s Favorite CodePen Demos

    David asked me if I'd be up for a guest post picking out some of my favorite Pens from CodePen. A daunting task! There are so many! I managed to pick a few though that have blown me away over the past few months. If you...

Discussion

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