Custom Matchers in Jasmine 2.3

Custom matchers, provided by the behavior-driven development framework Jasmine, is a great feature for testing JavaScript code. Custom Matchers helps to group multiple catch checking which makes the test cases clean and self explanatory.

Let’s look at an example that I tried recently

Here is a Calculator.js file:

   1: var Calculator = function () { };

   2:  

   3: Calculator.prototype.add = function (a, b) {

   4:     return a + b;

   5: };

   6:  

   7: Calculator.prototype.divide = function (a, b) {

   8:     return a / b;

   9: };

One of the test scenarios that I would like to try is to check whether the result of the method is in a particular range. The test method will look like this with existing matchers.

   1: describe('Calculator', function () {

   2:     var calc;

   3:  

   4:     beforeEach(function () {

   5:         calc = new Calculator();       

   6:     });

   7:  

   8:     it('should be able to add 1 and 1', function () {

   9:         expect(calc.add(1, 1)).toBe(2);

  10:     });

  11:  

  12:     it('should be able to divide 6 by 2', function () {

  13:         expect(calc.divide(6, 2)).toBe(3);

  14:     })

  15:  

  16:     it('should be able to divide a rational number', function () {

  17:         expect(calc.divide(1, 3)).toBeLessThan(0.34);

  18:         expect(calc.divide(1, 3)).toBeGreaterThan(0.3);        

  19:     })

  20: });

But you can replace the existing matchers with a custom matcher like this.

   1: describe('Calculator', function () {

   2:     var calc;

   3:  

   4:     beforeEach(function () {

   5:         calc = new Calculator();

   6:  

   7:         jasmine.addMatchers({

   8:             toBeBetween: function (util, customEqualityTesters) {

   9:                 return {

  10:                     compare: function (actual, a, b) {

  11:                         var result = {};

  12:                         result.pass = actual >= a && actual <= b;

  13:                         return result;

  14:                     }

  15:                 }

  16:             }

  17:         });

  18:     });

  19:  

  20:     it('should be able to add 1 and 1', function () {

  21:         expect(calc.add(1, 1)).toBe(2);

  22:     });

  23:  

  24:     it('should be able to divide 6 by 2', function () {

  25:         expect(calc.divide(6, 2)).toBe(3);

  26:     })

  27:  

  28:     it('should be able to divide a rational number', function () {

  29:         expect(calc.divide(1, 3)).toBeBetween(0.3, 0.34);

  30:     })

  31: });

You can reuse custom matchers to make the test cases clear and more simple.

What are some scenarios that you use custom matchers?