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Deviations

The Jest Lua alignment effort aims to map as closely to Jest's API as possible, but there are a few places where language deviations require us to omit functionality or deviate our approach. Deviations are also sometimes made to maintain Lua-nativity. Any user-facing deviations are documented here.

Globals​

.each​

Tagged templates are not available in Lua. As an alternative, a list of tables can be passed into each. First argument is a string with headings separated by |, or a table with a single element containing that.

test.each('a | b | expected',
	{1, 1, 2},
	{1, 2, 3},
	{2, 1, 3}
)('returns $expected when $a is added $b', function(ref)
	local a, b, expected = ref.a, ref.b, ref.expected
	expect(a + b).toBe(expected)
end)

An array of arrays can still be passed, see .each.

Expect​

.never​

Since not is a reserved keyword in Lua, Jest Lua uses never to test the opposite of a matcher.

Some aliases are provided:

  • .arrayNotContaining
  • .objectNotContaining
  • .stringNotContaining
  • .stringNotMatching

expect.extend(matchers)​

The first argument that a custom matcher takes in expect.extend(matchers) always needs to be a self, which is assigned the matcherContext. It can be left empty with a _ if the matcherContext is not needed. See the Custom Matchers API doc for more information.

expect.extend({
	yourMatcher = function(self, y, z)
		return {
			pass = true,
			message = function() return '' end
		}
	end
})

expect.any(typename | prototype)​

Lua doesn't have constructors for primitive types, so expect.any accepts either a typename string (e.g. "number", "boolean") or a table representing a prototype class.

  • If a typename string is passed in, it checks that the received value has the typeof() value as the expected string
  • If a table is passed in, it checks that the received value in is an instance (or a derived instance) of the expected table, using the instanceof method in LuauPolyfill

expect.nothing()​

expect.nothing allows for matching against nil and undefined values. You can use it inside toMatchObject and other similar matchers to ensure something is undefined or nil.

expect.stringMatching(string | regexp)​

expect.stringMatching(string | regexp) can either accept a Lua string pattern or a RegExp.

.toHaveLength(number)​

.toHaveLength(number) uses the Lua # operator to check the length of the received value. Since # is only well defined for non-sparse array-like tables and strings it will return 0 for tables with key-value pairs. It also checks the .length property of the table instead if it has one.

.toHaveLength cannot be used to check the argument count of a function.

.toBeFalsy()​

.toBeFalsy() checks for Lua falsy values, which are only false and nil. That means that unlike in Javscript, expect(0).toBeFalsy() does not pass. Consequently, .toBeTruthy() matches anything that isn't false or nil.

.toBeNil()​

When doing nil checking, use of .toBeNil() and .never.toBeNil() is encouraged to maintain Lua syntax. The following methods are identical but provided for the sake of completeness:

  • .toBeUndefined() is identical to .toBeNil()
  • .toBeDefined() is identical to .never.toBeNil()
  • .toBeNull() is an alias of .toBeNil()

.toBeInstanceOf(prototype)​

.toBeInstanceOf(prototype) uses the instanceof method in LuauPolyfill to check that a value is an instance (or a derived instance) of a prototype class.

.toMatch(string | regexp)​

.toMatch matches a Lua string pattern or a Regexp.

.toMatchInstance(table)​

.toMatchInstance is custom matcher unique to Jest Lua that allows for matching a Roblox Instance against a table of properties.

.toStrictEqual()​

toStrictEqual() performs a toEqual comparison with an additional type/class check based on metatable inheritance. Our toStrictEqual does not check for array sparseness or for undefined values like the matcher does in Javascript's Jest.

.toThrow(error?)​

.toThrow(error?) can also accept custom Error objects provided by LuauPolyfill.

Mock Functions​

jest.fn()​

jest.fn() returns two values. The first return value is the mock object, which is a callable table and can be treated as a mock function if the tested code accepts a callable table as being interchangeable with a function.

For cases where the tested code requires a function, pass in the second return value of jest.fn(), which is a forwarding function that calls the mock.

local mock, mockFn = jest.fn()
mockFn()
expect(mock).toHaveBeenCalled()

Note that this remains backward compatible with Jest tests translated from JavaScript, since the second argument will be dropped if not explicitly assigned.

mockFn.new​

Our translation of new mockFn() in Javascript is mockFn.new()

So for the following code pattern in Javascript:

const mockFn = jest.fn()
const instance1 = new mockFn()

We would write it in Lua as:

local mockFn = jest.fn()
local instance1 = mockFn.new()

Fake Timers​

jest.useFakeTimers()​

jest.useFakeTimers() injects fake versions of Lua and Roblox timers.

The supported timers are delay, tick, time, DateTime, task.delay, os.time, and os.clock.

Configuration​

projects​

The projects configuration takes an array of Instances. Each entry should be a path to a datamodel Instance with a configuration file.

Filters​

Test filtering configuration options like testMatch or testPathIgnorePatterns match against the path of the test in the datamodel, not the filesystem path.