Book Image

Mastering React Test-Driven Development

By : Daniel Irvine
Book Image

Mastering React Test-Driven Development

By: Daniel Irvine

Overview of this book

Many programmers are aware of TDD but struggle to apply it beyond basic examples. This book teaches how to build complex, real-world applications using Test-Driven Development (TDD). It takes a first principles approach to the TDD process using plain Jest and includes test-driving the integration of libraries including React Router, Redux, and Relay (GraphQL). Readers will practice systematic refactoring while building out their own test framework, gaining a deep understanding of TDD tools and techniques. They will learn how to test-drive features such as client- and server-side form validation, data filtering and searching, navigation and user workflow, undo/redo, animation, LocalStorage access, WebSocket communication, and querying GraphQL endpoints. The book covers refactoring codebases to use the React Router and Redux libraries. via TDD. Redux is explored in depth, with reducers, middleware, sagas, and connected React components. The book also covers acceptance testing using Cucumber and Puppeteer. The book is fully up to date with React 16.9 and has in-depth coverage of hooks and the ‘act’ test helper.
Table of Contents (21 chapters)
Free Chapter
1
Section 1: First Principles of TDD
6
Section 2: Building a Single-Page Application
12
Section 3: Interactivity
16
Section 4: Acceptance Testing with BDD

Summary

This chapter has explored building out a component with some complex user interactions between the user interface and an API.

The shape that our code takes is often dependent on the order in which we add features. In our case, that ultimately took us down the "wrong" path with the design that we had corrected. Thankfully, our tests helped us do that without fear of functional regression.

Making the "wrong" decisions is a normal part of coding, and it's important we notice when it's time to try a different approach. Our tests help us admit when we're doing the wrong thing, rather than being stuck with our poor choices.

In the next chapter, we'll use tests to integrate React Router into our application. We'll revisit our CustomerSearch component by adding the ability to use the browser location bar to specify search criteria....