easy-api-fixtures

This library uses a declarative methodology to make it easy to create data fixtures for your testing needs. If you are like me, you strongly dislike having to keep your data fixtures up to date after changes are made to an upstream API dependency. To make it easier to manage these changes, this packages uses allows you to include a fixtures.config.js to control your fixtures.

Install

npm: easy-api-fixtures

Install with npm

npm install easy-api-fixtures --save-dev

Install with yarn

yarn add easy-api-fixtures --dev=yes

Creating Fixtures

To use this library you just need to include a fixtures.config.js file in your projects root directory. Once that is done you can create a script to run the binary:

"scripts": {
  "fixtures": "createFixtures"
}

And then use one of the following commands in the CLI:

npm

npm run fixtures

yarn

yarn fixtures

Request Fixture Data

Once the fixtures are created, you will need to use the library to easily retrieve the fixture data. That is as easy as importing the library into your tests and using the request() function.

const mockApi = require('easy-api-fixtures');

...
// url should be the real url that would be used to retrieve the data in production
const url = 'http://www.fake-api.com/post/1'
const data = mockApi.request(url)
...

// You can now use 'data' in your testing needs

Basic Config Example

The following is a basic example of the bare minimum amount of configuration that needs to be in the fixtures.config.js file. The following configuration will create ./test/fixtures/post/1.json with the data that a GET request to http://www.fake-api.com/post/1 would provide.

module.exports = {
  output: {
    // make sure this is relative to your projects root directory
    path: 'test/fixtures'
  },
  api: {
    url: 'http://www.fake-api.com',
    fixture: {
      endpoint: 'post',
      slug: '1'
    }
  }
}

Config Options

The following is a full example of a configuration file that this package can use. Note that it identifies the type of information supported.

module.exports = {
  output: {
    filename: String,
    path: String,
    endpointInPath: Boolean,
    versionInPath: Boolean,
    aliasInPath: Boolean,
  },
  // `api` can be either a single Object or an Array of them
  api: {
    url: String,
    version: String,
    alias: String,
    // `fixture` can be either a single Object or an Array of them
    fixture: [
      {
        endpoint: String | Array,
        slug: String | Array,
      }
    ],
  },
};

Config Options

output Object

filename String

Default: [name].json

This sets the pattern to be used when creating the fixture files. [name] is replaced by the slug of the api request.

path String

Required

This is the path where the fixtures will be stored.

endpointInPath Boolean

Default: true

This determines whether the API endpoint should be included in the save path for fixtures and the retrieval path.

versionInPath Boolean

Default: true

This determines whether the API version should be included in the save path for fixtures and the retrieval path.

aliasInPath Boolean

Default: true

This determines whether the API alias (via config file) should be included in the save path for fixtures and the retrieval path.

api Object or Array

This is either a single or an array of apis that will be used to create fixtures.

url String

The base API URL to use when making requests to create the fixtures. (i.e. http://www.fake-api.com)

version String

The version of the API to make the requests against. (ex. v1, v2, beta )

alias String or Array

Default: A sanitized representation of the url property

This is the name of the directory that will be used to save all fixture data for the API. This defaults to a sanitized representation of the url used to make the request. For example, http://www.fake-api.com will become httpwwwfake-apicom

fixture Object or Array

This is either a single or an array of objects used to determine what requests to make to create the fixtures

endpoint String or Array

This is either a single or an array of API endpoints to query to create the fixtures

slug String or Array

This is either a single or an array of queries to make against the above endpoints.