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To follow this tutorial you'll need to have learned the basics of jpm and followed the tutorial on writing reusable modules.

If you're migrating test code from cfx to jpm, see the guide to migrating from cfx, in particular the section on loading modules from test code.

The SDK provides a framework to help create and run unit tests for your code. To demonstrate how it works we'll write some unit tests for a simple Base64 encoding module.

A Simple Base64 Module

In a web page, you can perform Base64 encoding and decoding using the btoa() and atob() functions. Unfortunately these functions are attached to the window object: since this object is not available in your main add-on code, atob() and btoa() aren't available either. So we'll create a base64 module to expose these functions from the platform (see Creating Reusable Modules).

To begin with, create a new directory, navigate to it, and run jpm init. Now create a new file called "base64.js", and give it the following contents:

const { atob, btoa } = require("resource://gre/modules/Services.jsm");
 
exports.atob = a => atob(a);
exports.btoa = b => btoa(b);

This code exports two functions, which just call the platform's btoa() and atob() functions. To show the module in use, edit the "index.js" file as follows:

var base64 = require("./base64");

var button = require("sdk/ui/button/action").ActionButton({
  id: "base64",
  label: "base64",
  icon: "./icon-16.png",
  onClick: function() {
    encoded = base64.btoa("hello");
    console.log(encoded);
    decoded = base64.atob(encoded);
    console.log(decoded);
  }
});

To run this example you'll also have to have an icon file named "icon-16.png" saved in your add-ons "data" directory. You could download this icon: .

Now "index.js" imports the base64 module and calls its two exported functions. If we run the add-on and click the button, we should see the following logging output:

info: aGVsbG8=
info: hello

Testing the Base64 Module

Navigate to the add-on's test directory and delete the test-index.js file. In its place create a file called test-base64.js with the following contents:

var base64 = require("../base64");
 
exports["test atob"] = function(assert) {
  assert.ok(base64.atob("aGVsbG8=") == "hello", "atob works");
}
 
exports["test btoa"] = function(assert) {
  assert.ok(base64.btoa("hello") == "aGVsbG8=", "btoa works");
}
 
exports["test empty string"] = function(assert) {
  assert.throws(function() {
                  base64.atob();
                },
                "empty string check works");
}
 
require("sdk/test").run(exports);

Note that with jpm we must give the exact relative path to the base64.js module.

This file: exports three functions, each of which expects to receive a single argument which is an assert object. assert is supplied by the test/assert module and implements the CommonJS Unit Testing specification.

  • The first two functions call atob() and btoa() and use assert.ok() to check that the output is as expected.

  • The second function tests the module's error-handling code by passing an empty string into atob() and using assert.throws() to check that the expected exception is raised.

At this point your add-on ought to look like this:

  /base64
      /data
          icon-16.png
      package.json
      README.md
      index.js
      base64.js
      /test
          test-base64.js

Now execute jpm --verbose test from the add-on's root directory. You should see something like this:

console.info: jpm-utest: executing './test/test-base64.test atob'
console.info: jpm-utest: pass: atob works
console.info: jpm-utest: executing './test/test-base64.test btoa'
console.info: jpm-utest: pass: btoa works
console.info: jpm-utest: executing './test/test-base64.test empty string'
console.info: jpm-utest: pass: empty string check works

3 of 3 tests passed.
All tests passed!

What happens here is that jpm test:

  • looks in the test directory of your package
  • loads any modules whose names start with the word test- (Note the hyphen after "test" in the module name. jpm test will include a module called "test-myCode.js", but will exclude modules called "test_myCode.js" or "testMyCode.js".)
  • calls each exported function whose name starts with "test", passing it an assert object as its only argument.

Obviously, you don't have to pass the --verbose option to jpm if you don't want to; doing so just makes the output easier to read.

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 Last updated by: maymay,