Pretender

Pretender is a mock server library in the style of Sinon (but built from microlibs. Because javascript) that comes with an express/sinatra style syntax for defining routes and their handlers.

Pretender will temporarily replace the native XMLHttpRequest object, intercept all requests, and direct them to little pretend service you've defined.

var PHOTOS = {
  "10": {
    id: 10,
    src: 'http://media.giphy.com/media/UdqUo8xvEcvgA/giphy.gif'
  },
  "42": {
    id: 42,
    src: 'http://media0.giphy.com/media/Ko2pyD26RdYRi/giphy.gif'
  }
};

var server = new Pretender(function(){
  this.get('/photos', function(request){
    var all =  JSON.stringify(Object.keys(PHOTOS).map(function(k){return PHOTOS[k]}))
    return [200, {"Content-Type": "application/json"}, all]
  });

  this.get('/photos/:id', function(request){
    return [200, {"Content-Type": "application/json"}, JSON.stringify(PHOTOS[request.params.id])]
  });
});

$.get('/photos/12', {success: function(){ ... }})

The Server DSL

The server DSL is inspired by express/sinatra. Pass a function to the Pretender constructor that will be invoked with the Pretender instance as its context. Available methods are get, put, post, 'delete', patch, and head. Each of these methods takes a url pattern and a callback. The callback will be invoked with a single argument (the XMLHttpRequest instance that triggered this request).

If there were dynamic portions of the url, these well be attached to the request object as a params property with keys matching the dynamic portion and values with the matching value from the url.

If there were query parameters in the request, these well be attached to the request object as a queryParams property.

You must return an array from this handler that includes the HTTP status code, an object literal of response headers, and a string body.

var server = new Pretender(function(){
  this.put('/api/songs/:song_id', function(request){
    request // the xhr object
    request.params // {song_id: 'the id passed in the url'}
    request.queryParams // any query params on the request, here just {}

    return [202, {"Content-Type": "application/json"}, "{}"]
  });
});

Hooks

Handled Requests

In addition to responding to the request, your server will call a handledRequest method with the HTTP verb, path, and original request. By default this method does nothing. You can override this method to supply your own behavior like logging or test framework integration:

var server = new Pretender(function(){
  this.put('/api/songs/:song_id', function(request){
    return [202, {"Content-Type": "application/json"}, "{}"]
  });
});

server.handledRequest = function(verb, path, request) {
  console.log("a request was responded to");
}

$.getJSON("/api/songs/12");

Unhandled Requests

Your server will call a unhandledRequest method with the HTTP verb, path, and original request, object if your server receives a request for a route that doesn't have a handler. By default, this method will throw an error. You can override this method to supply your own behavior:

var server = new Pretender(function(){
  // no routes
});

server.unhandledRequest = function(verb, path, request) {
  console.log("what is this I don't even...");
}

$.getJSON("/these/arent/the/droids");

Error Requests

Your server will call a erroredRequest method with the HTTP verb, path, original request, and the original error object if your handler code causes an error:

By default, this will augment the error message with some information about which handler caused the error and then throw the error again. You can override this method to supply your own behavior:

var server = new Pretender(function(){
  this.get('/api/songs', function(request){
    undefinedWat("this is no function!");
  });
});

server.erroredRequest = function(verb, path, request, error) {
  SomeTestFramework.failTest();
  console.warn("There was an error", error);
}

Mutating the body

Pretender is response format neutral, so you normally need to supply a string body as the third part of a response:

this.get('/api/songs', function(request){
  return [200, {}, "{'id': 12}"];
});

This can become tiresome if you know, for example, that all your responses are going to be JSON. The body of a response will be passed through a prepareBody hook before being passed to the fake response object. prepareBody defaults to an empty function, but can be overriden:

var server = new Pretender(function(){
  this.get('/api/songs', function(request){
    return [200, {}, {id: 12}];
  });
});

server.prepareBody = function(body){
  return body ? JSON.stringify(body) : '{"error": "not found"}';
}

Tracking Requests

Your pretender instance will track handlers and requests on a few array properties. All handlers are stored on handlers property and incoming requests will be tracked in one of two properties: handledRequests and unhandledRequests. This is useful if you want to build testing infrastructure on top of pretender and need to fail tests that have handlers without requests.

Each handler keeps a count of the number of requests is successfully served.

Clean up

When you're done mocking, be sure to call shutdown() to restore the native XMLHttpRequest object:

var server = new Pretender(function(){
 ... routing ...
});

server.shutdown(); // all done.