Jesting with Imports: Safe or Sorry?

So, I was checking out the tests in my workspace, and I stumbled upon this funky "require" pattern that left me scratching my head.

function getMocksForTest(): typeof import('./module-to-test') {
  // We can't simply import this at the top level of the module since the necessary jest mocks won't have been applied yet.
  return require('./module-to-test');
}

it('passes simple test', () => {
  const { functionToTest } = getMocksForTest();
  expect(functionToTest()).toEqual('foo');
});

I’ve never had to switch to require statements before when using Jest, so I was surprised to see this. Normally I would just import the module directly.

import { functionToTest } from './module-to-test';

it('passes simple test', () => {
  expect(functionToTest()).toEqual('foo');
});

Using import statements is much more succinct. So why was a different pattern used? I left it alone when I first joined, but now I’ve done some research and software archaeology to better understand where this pattern arose, when its needed, and when it can be removed.

This pattern is only useful when using jest.mock#

The first thing that threw me off is the name getMocksForTest. There’s no mocking involved, so the name didn’t seem appropriate. But I later found test files with a more complicated setup.

function getMocksForTest() {
  const mockCreatePage = jest.fn();

  jest.mock('../pages', () => ({
    ...jest.requireActual('../pages'),
    createPage: mockCreatePage,
  }));

  // We can't simply import this at the top level of the module since the necessary jest mocks won't have been applied yet.
  const { functionToTest } =
    require('./module-to-test') as typeof import('./module-to-test');

  return {
    functionToTest,
    mockCreatePage,
  };
}

it('passes complex test', () => {
  const { functionToTest, mockCreatePage } = getMocksForTest();
  mockCreatePage.mockReturnValue('dependency');
  expect(functionToTest()).toEqual('foo+dependency');
});

Here, we use jest.mock() to mock a module in the file ../pages.ts. The module we’re testing, ./module-to-test.ts, depends on ../pages.ts and imports it.

If we had imported the module to test prior to running jest.mock(), then our mock would not have been set up in time. Instead, the original version of ../pages.ts would have been imported.

import { functionToTest } from './module-to-test';

function getMocksForTest() {
  const mockCreatePage = jest.fn();

  // Too late! `../pages` already got imported by this point.
  jest.mock('../pages', () => ({
    ...jest.requireActual('../pages'),
    createPage: mockCreatePage,
  }));

  return {
    mockCreatePage,
  };
}

Now that I’ve encountered a function that actually creates mocks, the name makes more sense. Later on, developers would copy-paste tests and just remove what they didn’t need. That’s how we ended up with functions with the name “get mocks” that never did any mocking.

But if a test file never uses jest.mock(), then this pattern is totally unnecessary. It can be cleaned up and the module can be imported directly instead.

Isn’t jest.mock() always run after import statements?#

Now we know that this pattern is needed when jest.mock() runs after the module is imported. But lots of test files do use jest.mock() and I’ve never seen this require pattern used before. So how does jest.mock() normally work?

It turns out Jest runs some special transformations on your test files before running them. It doesn’t just transform TypeScript to JavaScript, it also hoists (aka moves) jest.mock() calls to the top of the file, before any import statements. This is done using the babel-jest plugin, which is enabled by default.

As a result, a test file like this:

// example.test.ts
import { functionToTest } from './module-to-test';

jest.mock('../pages', () => {
  const mockCreatePage: jest.MockedFn<() => string> = jest.fn();
  return {
    ...jest.requireActual('../pages'),
    createPage: mockCreatePage,
  };
});

it('passes complex test', () => {
  const { functionToTest, mockCreatePage } = getMocksForTest();
  mockCreatePage.mockReturnValue('dependency');
  expect(functionToTest()).toEqual('foo+dependency');
});

will get transformed into a Node.js-compatible file like below:

// compliled.test.js
// hoisted to top of file
jest.mock('../pages', () => {
  // TypeScript types removed
  const mockCreatePage = jest.fn();
  return {
    ...jest.requireActual('../pages'),
    createPage: mockCreatePage,
  };
});

// import statements transformed to CommonJS
const { functionToTest } = require('./module-to-test');

it('passes complex test', () => {
  const { functionToTest, mockCreatePage } = getMocksForTest();
  mockCreatePage.mockReturnValue('dependency');
  expect(functionToTest()).toEqual('foo+dependency');
});

Does jest.mock always get hoisted?#

Nope! There are particular conditions necessary for a module mock to be hoisted. Here’s the checks I found from digging through the source code of Jest’s babel plugin.

The first argument to jest.mock() should be a literal value.
The second argument, if provided, should be an inline function.
That function shouldn’t reference any variables defined outside the function.
jest.mock() must be called at the top-level, and not inside another function.
- Otherwise, it gets moved to the top of the function it’s called in.

Essentially, if you can’t just cut-and-paste your jest.mock() code to the top of the file, it won’t get automatically moved. Referring to other variables defined earlier will stop the function from being hoisted.

// none of these will be hoisted
const moduleName = './module';
jest.mock(moduleName);

function factory() {
  return jest.fn();
}
jest.mock('./module', factory);

jest.mock('./module', () => {
  // variable defined outside scope
  return jest.fn().mockReturnValue(moduleName);
});

If you do need to refer to variables defined outside the mock function, you can either import them separately or use jest.doMock to explicitly avoid hoisting.

import { createPage } from '../pages';

jest.mock('../pages', () => ({
  createPage: jest.fn(),
}));

const mockCreatePage = createPage as jest.Mocked<typeof createPage>;

As long as all your module mocks can be hoisted, it’s safe to import your code to test using an import statement.