robot.http has no effect in tests

[pchaigno]

It looks like there is an issue with robot.http when using hubot-test-helper. The following script works fine with a Hubot shell but the associated test does not seem to trigger any HTTP request.

Script:

module.exports = (robot) ->
  robot.hear /(http(?:s?):\/\/(\S*))/i, (res) ->
    url = res.match[1]
    res.send "ok1: #{url}"
    robot.http(url).get() (err, response, body) ->
      res.send "ok2: #{url}"

Test:

context "user posts link", ->
    beforeEach ->
      room.user.say 'user1', 'http://google.com'

    it 'hubot posts details about the link', ->
      expect(room.messages).to.eql [
        ['user1', 'http://google.com']
        ['hubot', 'ok1: http://google.com']
        ['hubot', 'ok2: http://google.com']
      ]

[mtsmfm]

Hmm, I'll investigate 💫
Thank you for your report 🌠

[kengz]

Hi @pchaigno the problem is on two fronts. I ran the tests as below:

Helper = require('hubot-test-helper')
helper = new Helper('../scripts/s1.coffee')

co     = require('co')
expect = require('chai').expect

# test ping
describe 'http', ->
  beforeEach ->
    @room = helper.createRoom(httpd: false)

  # Test case
  context 'user posts link', ->
    beforeEach ->
      co =>
        yield @room.user.say 'user1', 'http://google.com'

    # response
    it 'does not expect deplayed callback', ->
      console.log @room.messages
      expect(@room.messages).to.eql [
        ['user1', 'http://google.com']
        ['hubot', 'ok1: http://google.com']
      ]

    # response
    it 'expects deplayed callback from ok2', ->
      console.log @room.messages
      expect(@room.messages).to.eql [
        ['user1', 'http://google.com']
        ['hubot', 'ok1: http://google.com']
        ['hubot', 'ok2: http://google.com']
      ]

• Note that I included co for flow control. This is similar to issue room.user.say() and responses are not executed in series... #20 , where if you don't use co it doesn't wait for a reply (the entire thing is promise-based).
• the room object shall be initialized properly with @room, which binds it to the co for usage. Otherwise there will be no response either.

Anyways, the first test does not expect deplayed callback passed, the second test expects deplayed callback from ok2 failed. In both cases, if you print out the @room.message it is

[ [ 'user1', 'http://google.com' ],
  [ 'hubot', 'ok1: http://google.com' ] ]

Perhaps the delayed action from ok2 isn't properly binded with the Promise object from co, so co didn't wait for the second part robot.http(url).get()... to resolve. To put it:

• robot.http doesn't bind to the Promise of co for resolving promises in the test.

I'll leave this to @mtsmfm

[mdelagrange]

I don't think that using co really matters in this case. Mocha is smart enough to wait on the resolution of a promise returned by a test method:

http://mochajs.org/#working-with-promises

In this case, the Promise is returned by the receive method in the test helper. So co really has no effect one way or another.

The real problem is that there is no Promise associated with the http call, which is asynchronous. I doubt there is a way to force the test to wait for the result of the HTTP call. In this case I'd use a mocking library to stub out the http call.

(In other words, your HTTP call is probably being triggered, but the test finishes before the callback is executed.)

[kengz]

@mdelagrange I agree, but there's no simple way to obtain the promise from the bot script. However since it is promise based, just like real-life interaction, the tester shall expect some time delay from the bot, although it cannot called directly (there's no handle as mentioned) when the promise resolves.

Adding that manual, expected time delay solves it, and the beforeEach body will wait for a new more seconds for the second message above to return and be added to the room.

Below is a snippet slightly modified from my earlier version that works.

Helper = require('hubot-test-helper')
helper = new Helper('../scripts/s1.coffee')

co     = require('co')
expect = require('chai').expect

# test ping
describe 'http', ->
  beforeEach ->
    @room = helper.createRoom(httpd: false)

  # Test case
  context 'user posts link', ->
    beforeEach ->
      co =>
        yield @room.user.say 'user1', 'http://google.com'
        # delay one second here
        yield new Promise((resolve, reject) -> 
            setTimeout(resolve, 1000);
          )

    # response
    it 'expects deplayed callback from ok2', ->
      console.log @room.messages
      expect(@room.messages).to.eql [
        ['user1', 'http://google.com']
        ['hubot', 'ok1: http://google.com']
        ['hubot', 'ok2: http://google.com']
      ]

passes the test: ✓ expects deplayed callback from ok2

@mtsmfm @pchaigno consider this solved :)

[kengz]

@mtsmfm in the light of this issue, can we implement a feature where sending a message will emit an event 'message sent', and so when the room handles the event by expecting a message; then when it receives the message it resolves and returns a promise?

This is more reliable than waiting an arbitrary time - I found out that during busy times on Travis it could take up to 5 seconds for a room to receive a message.

[mtsmfm]

Sorry for late response 😓
I'm looking for the way to test without setTimeout, but it seems that there are no way without it 😢

I found out that during busy times on Travis it could take up to 5 seconds for a room to receive a message

Thanks very useful advice 👍
I'll write it in our README in this (or next) weekend and I'll close this issue.
(But I'm not native english speaker so I'm very happy if someone create PR 😄 )

[mtsmfm]

close via #25