FAQ: Server Testing Patterns - Response Content

Frequently Asked Questions JavaScript FAQ
1

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This community-built FAQ covers the “Response Content” exercise from the lesson “Server Testing Patterns”.

Paths and Courses
This exercise can be found in the following Codecademy content:

Web Development

Learn Testing for Web Development

FAQs on the exercise Response Content

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2

I am getting a syntax error here if I use single quotations marks, like this:

router.get('/', (req, res) => {
    res.send('<h1 id='page-title'>Messaging App</h1>');
});

Provides this error message:

    res.send('<h1 id='page-title'>Messaging App</h1>');
             ^^^^^^^^^
SyntaxError: missing ) after argument list

But if I change it to double quotation marks, I am fine:

router.get('/', (req, res) => {
    res.send('<h1 id="page-title">Messaging App</h1>');
});

This never happened in any other exercises so far… is it because the HTML string is already using a set of single quotation marks? Or am I missing something?

3

I looked at jsdom documentation and in the notes. Why must we put a # in the string as below?

It’s coming from htmlAsString or maybe because of jsdom?

assert.equal(parseTextFromHTML(response.text, '#page-title'), "Messaging App")

Full script below:

const {assert} = require('chai');
const request = require('supertest');
const {jsdom} = require('jsdom');

const app = require('../../app');

const parseTextFromHTML = (htmlAsString, selector) => {
  const selectedElement = jsdom(htmlAsString).querySelector(selector);
  if (selectedElement !== null) {
    return selectedElement.textContent;
  } else {
    throw new Error(`No element with selector ${selector} found in HTML string`);
  }
};

describe('root page', () => {
  describe('GET request', () => {
    it('returns a 200 status', async () => {
      const response = await request(app).
      get('/');
      assert.equal(response.status, 200);
    });
    
    it('contains the correct title', async () => {
      const response = await request(app).
      get('/');
      
      assert.equal(parseTextFromHTML(response.text, '#page-title'), "Messaging App")

    });
  });
});

https://www.codecademy.com/paths/back-end-engineer-career-path/tracks/becp-test-driven-development-with-javascript/modules/fscp-learn-server-testing-with-tdd/lessons/test-server-patterns/exercises/test-server-patterns-response-content

4

Good question. I looked back in the lessons and found this:

const parseTextFromHTML = (htmlAsString, selector) =>{
   ...}

where the second argument is ‘selector’ which I understand to be an HTML selector, similar to the DOM method,

document.querySelector('#elementID') ;

So I am guessing we need to designate what element by writing ‘#elementID’. I presume we could also use ‘.elementClass’ as well?

5

Thank Jeffa,

Yes, it’s a CSS selector. The backend engineering path doesn’t cover CSS enough prior to this point. It just slips it in and expects us to know or find out on our own. Just another disjointed thing that causes unnecessary stress and wastes time in this path.

3 Likes
6

I get what you’re saying. There are some parts of this course that are very frustrating…needlessly frustrating.

1 Like
7

For our tests, once we retrieve the response from the server, we use assert.include() from the Chai library to check the response.
assert.include(parseTextFromHTML(response.text, ‘#my-name’), “My Name”); //True

Why does the hint for the first task tell us to use equal instead of include?

Use assert.equal to check the text returned from parseTextFromHTML().

1 Like