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Table of Contents

• The problem
• This solution
• Installation
  • Suppressing unnecessary warnings on React DOM 16.8
• Examples
  • Basic Example
  • Complex Example
  • More Examples
• Hooks
• Guiding Principles
• Docs
• Issues
  • 🐛 Bugs
  • 💡 Feature Requests
  • ❓ Questions
• Contributors
• LICENSE

The problem

You want to write maintainable tests for your React components. As a part of this goal, you want your tests to avoid including implementation details of your components and rather focus on making your tests give you the confidence for which they are intended. As part of this, you want your testbase to be maintainable in the long run so refactors of your components (changes to implementation but not functionality) don't break your tests and slow you and your team down.

This solution

The react-testing-library is a very lightweight solution for testing React components. It provides light utility functions on top of react-dom and react-dom/test-utils, in a way that encourages better testing practices. Its primary guiding principle is:

The more your tests resemble the way your software is used, the more confidence they can give you.

Installation

This module is distributed via npm which is bundled with node and should be installed as one of your project's devDependencies:

npm install --save-dev @testing-library/react

This library has peerDependencies listings for react and react-dom.

You may also be interested in installing @testing-library/jest-dom so you can use the custom jest matchers.

Docs

Suppressing unnecessary warnings on React DOM 16.8

There is a known compatibility issue with React DOM 16.8 where you will see the following warning:

Warning: An update to ComponentName inside a test was not wrapped in act(...).

If you cannot upgrade to React DOM 16.9, you may suppress the warnings by adding the following snippet to your test configuration (learn more):

// this is just a little hack to silence a warning that we'll get until we
// upgrade to 16.9: https://github.com/facebook/react/pull/14853
const originalError = console.error
beforeAll(() => {
  console.error = (...args) => {
    if (/Warning.*not wrapped in act/.test(args[0])) {
      return
    }
    originalError.call(console, ...args)
  }
})

afterAll(() => {
  console.error = originalError
})

Examples

Basic Example

// hidden-message.js
import React from 'react'

// NOTE: React Testing Library works with React Hooks _and_ classes just as well
// and your tests will be the same however you write your components.
function HiddenMessage({children}) {
  const [showMessage, setShowMessage] = React.useState(false)
  return (
    <div>
      <label htmlFor="toggle">Show Message</label>
      <input
        id="toggle"
        type="checkbox"
        onChange={e => setShowMessage(e.target.checked)}
        checked={showMessage}
      />
      {showMessage ? children : null}
    </div>
  )
}

export default HiddenMessage

// __tests__/hidden-message.js
// these imports are something you'd normally configure Jest to import for you
// automatically. Learn more in the setup docs: https://testing-library.com/docs/react-testing-library/setup#cleanup
import '@testing-library/react/cleanup-after-each'
import '@testing-library/jest-dom/extend-expect'
// NOTE: jest-dom adds handy assertions to Jest and is recommended, but not required

import React from 'react'
import {render, fireEvent} from '@testing-library/react'
import HiddenMessage from '../hidden-message'

test('shows the children when the checkbox is checked', () => {
  const testMessage = 'Test Message'
  const {queryByText, getByLabelText, getByText} = render(
    <HiddenMessage>{testMessage}</HiddenMessage>,
  )

  // query* functions will return the element or null if it cannot be found
  // get* functions will return the element or throw an error if it cannot be found
  expect(queryByText(testMessage)).toBeNull()

  // the queries can accept a regex to make your selectors more resilient to content tweaks and changes.
  fireEvent.click(getByLabelText(/show/i))

  // .toBeInTheDocument() is an assertion that comes from jest-dom
  // otherwise you could use .toBeDefined()
  expect(getByText(testMessage)).toBeInTheDocument()
})

Complex Example

// login.js
import React from 'react'

function Login() {
  const [state, setState] = React.useReducer((s, a) => ({...s, ...a}), {
    resolved: false,
    loading: false,
    error: null,
  })

  function handleSubmit(event) {
    event.preventDefault()
    const {usernameInput, passwordInput} = event.target.elements

    setState({loading: true, resolved: false, error: null})

    window
      .fetch('/api/login', {
        method: 'POST',
        headers: {'Content-Type': 'application/json'},
        body: JSON.stringify({
          username: usernameInput.value,
          password: passwordInput.value,
        }),
      })
      .then(r => r.json())
      .then(
        user => {
          setState({loading: false, resolved: true, error: null})
          window.localStorage.setItem('token', user.token)
        },
        error => {
          setState({loading: false, resolved: false, error: error.message})
        },
      )
  }

  return (
    <div>
      <form onSubmit={handleSubmit}>
        <div>
          <label htmlFor="usernameInput">Username</label>
          <input id="usernameInput" />
        </div>
        <div>
          <label htmlFor="passwordInput">Password</label>
          <input id="passwordInput" type="password" />
        </div>
        <button type="submit">Submit{state.loading ? '...' : null}</button>
      </form>
      {state.error ? <div role="alert">{state.error.message}</div> : null}
      {state.success ? (
        <div role="alert">Congrats! You're signed in!</div>
      ) : null}
    </div>
  )
}

export default Login

// __tests__/login.js
// again, these first two imports are something you'd normally handle in
// your testing framework configuration rather than importing them in every file.
import '@testing-library/react/cleanup-after-each'
import '@testing-library/jest-dom/extend-expect'
import React from 'react'
import {render, fireEvent} from '@testing-library/react'
import Login from '../login'

test('allows the user to login successfully', async () => {
  // mock out window.fetch for the test
  const fakeUserResponse = {token: 'fake_user_token'}
  jest.spyOn(window, 'fetch').mockImplementationOnce(() => {
    return Promise.resolve({
      json: () => Promise.resolve(fakeUserResponse),
    })
  })

  const {getByLabelText, getByText, findByRole} = render(<Login />)

  // fill out the form
  fireEvent.change(getByLabelText(/username/i), {target: {value: 'chuck'}})
  fireEvent.change(getByLabelText(/password/i), {target: {value: 'norris'}})

  fireEvent.click(getByText(/submit/i))

  // just like a manual tester, we'll instruct our test to wait for the alert
  // to show up before continuing with our assertions.
  const alert = await findByRole('alert')

  // .toHaveTextContent() comes from jest-dom's assertions
  // otherwise you could use expect(alert.textContent).toMatch(/congrats/i)
  // but jest-dom will give you better error messages which is why it's recommended
  expect(alert).toHaveTextContent(/congrats/i)
  expect(window.localStorage.getItem('token')).toEqual(fakeUserResponse.token)
})

More Examples

We're in the process of moving examples to the docs site

You'll find runnable examples of testing with different libraries in the react-testing-library-examples codesandbox. Some included are:

• react-redux
• react-router
• react-context

You can also find react-testing-library examples at react-testing-examples.com.

Hooks

If you are interested in testing a custom hook, check out react-hooks-testing-library.

NOTE it is not recommended to test single-use custom hooks in isolation from the components where it's being used. It's better to test the component that's using the hook rather than the hook itself. The react-hooks-testing-library is intended to be used for reusable hooks/libraries.

Guiding Principles

The more your tests resemble the way your software is used, the more confidence they can give you.

We try to only expose methods and utilities that encourage you to write tests that closely resemble how your react components are used.

Utilities are included in this project based on the following guiding principles:

1. If it relates to rendering components, it deals with DOM nodes rather than component instances, nor should it encourage dealing with component instances.
2. It should be generally useful for testing individual React components or full React applications. While this library is focused on react-dom, utilities could be included even if they don't directly relate to react-dom.
3. Utility implementations and APIs should be simple and flexible.

At the end of the day, what we want is for this library to be pretty light-weight, simple, and understandable.

Docs

Read The Docs | Edit the docs

Issues

Looking to contribute? Look for the Good First Issue label.

🐛 Bugs

Please file an issue for bugs, missing documentation, or unexpected behavior.

See Bugs

💡 Feature Requests

Please file an issue to suggest new features. Vote on feature requests by adding a 👍. This helps maintainers prioritize what to work on.

See Feature Requests

❓ Questions

For questions related to using the library, please visit a support community instead of filing an issue on GitHub.

• Spectrum
• Reactiflux on Discord
• Stack Overflow

Contributors

Thanks goes to these people (emoji key):

This project follows the all-contributors specification. Contributions of any kind welcome!

LICENSE

MIT