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How to test a class method with Jest

September 01, 2020

How to test if a method has been called:

class Person {
  greet() {
    console.log('Hi!');
  }
}

test('greet has been called', () => {
  const person = new Person();

  // We have to spy on the instance of the Person class because jest.spyOn expects an object as its first argument
  const spyOnGreet = jest.spyOn(person, 'greet');

  person.greet()

  expect(spyOnGreet).toHaveBeenCalled();
});

How to test a method that gets called in the constructor:

class Person {
  constructor() {
    this.greet();
  }

  greet() {
    console.log('Hi!');
  }
}

test('greet has been called', () => {
  // Now we have to spy on the prototype of the Person class because jest.spyOn expects an object as its first argument
  const spyOnGreet = jest.spyOn(Person.prototype, "greet");

  const person = new Person();

  expect(spyOnGreet).toHaveBeenCalled();
});