Run JavaScript unit tests inside of Visual Studio

user_50660 0
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I have been searching for a good way to run JavaScript unit tests inside of the Visual Studio IDE. I currently use TestDriven.net to run my C# units tests and it is very convenient to be able to quickly get the result of my tests in the output pane. I would love to find a similar experience for JavaScript (ideally working with TestDriven.net).

I have read about different solutions that let you execute JavaScrpt unit tests. Some have their own JS engine while others like JS-Test-Driver are able to send the code to the browsers and fetch the results. But I have yet to see something that is integrated into VS.

Does anyone know of an extension that might do this?

visual-studio unit-testing javascript
4 Answers

It is possible to use JsTestDriver to be a test-runner in Visual Studio. Once a server has been started, with browsers attached, one can run tests directly from within Visual Studio.

The Console-window will then give the output of the test results. I won't go to implementation details here, but the following how-to should be enough to get you started on the actual setup of Visual Studio / JsTestRunner.

Console output from chrome and internet explorer (ignore my bad test-names): Console output from chrome and internet explorer

JsTestDriver is mainly a test-running tool to verify multiple browsers. To get good unit-tests on the javascript itself, one can plug in other test-specific tools like JasmineBDD (jasmine to jstestdriver adapter).

JsTestDriver also opens up for the possibility to test against multiple browsers as a build step on your continuous integration server ie: Hudson (Continuous Integration with Hudson and jstestdriver). This then allows a dev to test against a certain browser or two while developing locally, but then verify the result against any range of OS / browser combinations on the build server.

user_1153030

Microsoft has a link recommending the use a NodeJS app to run our JavaScript Unit Tests. Visual Studio's test window can now see tests we write in that project even when the overall project is in C#:

One of the testing library combos (unit testing / mocking / assertions) recommended is using Mocha / Sinon / Chai. For this flavor there's a useful tutorial located here:

And another link for getting vanilla JS to work in the node environment:

user_109623520
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