NOTE: This documentation is still work in progress. Please help make it better by adding as much as you can and submitting a pull request.
You can also consult the older 1.4 documentation.
If you're going to write an insanely fast, headless browser, how can you not call it Zombie? Zombie it is.
Zombie.js is a lightweight framework for testing client-side JavaScript code in a simulated environment. No browser required.
Let's try to sign up to a page and see what happens:
var Browser = require('zombie');
var assert = require('assert');
// Load the page from localhost
var browser = Browser.create();
browser.localhost('example.com', 3000);
browser.visit('/signup', function (error) {
// Fill email, password and submit form
browser.
fill('email', 'zombie@underworld.dead').
fill('password', 'eat-the-living').
pressButton('Sign Me Up!', function() {
// Form submitted, new page loaded.
browser.assert.success();
browser.assert.text('title', 'Welcome To Brains Depot');
});
});
If you prefer using promises:
var Browser = require('zombie');
var assert = require('assert');
// Load the page from localhost
var browser = Browser.create();
browser.localhost('example.com', 3000);
browser.visit('/signup')
.then(function() {
// Fill email, password and submit form
browser.fill('email', 'zombie@underworld.dead');
browser.fill('password', 'eat-the-living');
return browser.pressButton('Sign Me Up!');
})
.done(function() {
// Form submitted, new page loaded.
browser.assert.success();
browser.assert.text('title', 'Welcome To Brains Depot');
});
Well, that was easy.
To install Zombie.js you will need Node.js 0.8 or later, NPM, a C++ toolchain and Python.
One-click installers for Windows, OS X, Linux and SunOS are available directly from the Node.js site.
On OS X you can download the full XCode from the Apple Store, or install the OSX GCC toolchain directly (smaller download).
You can also install Node and NPM using the wonderful Homebrew (if you're serious about developing on the Mac, you should be using Homebrew):
$ brew install node
$ node --version
v0.10.25
$ npm --version
1.3.24
$ npm install zombie --save-dev
On Windows you will need to install a recent version of Python and Visual Studio. See node-gyp for specific installation instructions and Chocolatey for easy package management.
Methods for making assertions against the browser, such as
browser.assert.element('.foo')
.
See Assertions for detailed discussion.
Provides access to the browser console (same as window.console
).
You can use this to set the HTTP Referer header.
Access to history of retrieved resources. Also provides methods for retrieving
resources and managing the resource pipeline. When things are not going your
way, try calling browser.resources.dump()
.
See Resources for detailed discussion.
Array of all open tabs (windows). Allows you to operate on more than one open window at a time.
See Tabs for detailed discussion.
Even though your test server is running on localhost and unprivileged port, this method makes it possible to access it as a different domain name and through port 80.
It also sets the default site URL, so your tests don't have to specify the hostname every time.
Let's say your test server runs on port 3000, and you want to write tests that
visit example.com
:
Browser.localhost('example.com', 3000);
You can now visit http://example.com/path
and it will talk to your local
server on port 3000. In fact, example.com
becomes the default domain, so your
tests can be as simple as:
// Global setting, applies to all browser instances
Browser.localhost('*.example.com', 3000);
// Browser instance for this test
var browser = new Browser();
browser.visit('/path', function() {
// It picks example.com as the default host
browser.assert.url('http://example.com/path');
});
Notice the asterisk in the above example, that tells Zombie to route all
sub-domains, so you can visit foo.example.com
and bar.example.com
in your
test case.
If you need to map multiple domains and/or ports, see DNS Masking and Port Mapping.
Browser.extend(function(browser) {
browser.on('console', function(level, message) {
logger.log(message);
});
browser.on('log', function(level, message) {
logger.log(message);
});
});
Are delicious. Also, somewhat tricky to work with. A browser will only send a cookie to the server if it matches the request domain and path.
Most modern Web applications don't care so much about the path and set all
cookies to the root path of the application (/
), but do pay attention to the
domain.
Consider this code:
browser.setCookie(name: 'session', domain: 'example.com', value: 'delicious');
browser.visit('http://example.com', function() {
var value = browser.getCookie('session');
console.log('Cookie', value);
});
In order for the cookie to be set in this example, we need to specify the cookie
name, domain and path. In this example we omit the path and choose the default
/
.
To get the cookie in this example, we only need the cookie name, because at that point the browser has an open document, and it can use the domain of that document to find the right cookie. We do need to specify a domain if we're interested in other cookies, e.g for a 3rd party widget.
There may be multiple cookies that match the same host, for example, cookies set
for .example.com
and www.example.com
will both match www.example.com
, but
only the former will match example.com
. Likewise, cookies set for /
and
/foo
will both match a request for /foo/bar
.
getCookie
, setCookie
and deleteCookie
always operate on a single cookie,
and they match the most specific one, starting with the cookies that have the
longest matching domain, followed by the cookie that has the longest matching
path.
If the first argument is a string, they look for a cookie with that name using
the hostname of the currently open page as the domain and /
as the path. To
be more specific, the first argument can be an object with the properties
name
, domain
and path
.
The following are equivalent:
browser.getCookie('session');
browser.getCookie({ name: 'session',
domain: browser.location.hostname,
path: browser.location.pathname });
getCookie
take a second argument. If false (or missing), it returns the
value of the cookie. If true, it returns an object with all the cookie
properties: name
, value
, domain
, path
, expires
, httpOnly
and
secure
.
Returns an object holding all cookies used by this browser.
Dumps all cookies to standard output, or the output stream.
Deletes a cookie matching the identifier.
The identifier is either the name of a cookie, or an object with the property
name
and the optional properties domain
and path
.
Deletes all cookies.
Returns a cookie matching the identifier.
The identifier is either the name of a cookie, or an object with the property
name
and the optional properties domain
and path
.
If allProperties
is true, returns an object with all the cookie properties,
otherwise returns the cookie value.
Sets the value of a cookie based on its name.
Sets the value of a cookie based on the following properties:
domain
- Domain of the cookie (requires, defaults to hostname of currently open page)expires
- When cookie it set to expire (Date
, optional, defaults to session)maxAge
- How long before cookie expires (in seconds, defaults to session)name
- Cookie name (required)path
- Path for the cookie (defaults to/
)httpOnly
- True if HTTP-only (not accessible from client-side JavaScript, defaults to false)secure
- True if secure (requires HTTPS, defaults to false)value
- Cookie value (required)
Just like your favorite Web browser, Zombie manages multiple open windows as tabs. New browsers start without any open tabs. As you visit the first page, Zombie will open a tab for it.
All operations against the browser
object operate on the currently active tab
(window) and most of the time you only need to interact with that one tab. You
can access it directly via browser.window
.
Web pages can open additional tabs using the window.open
method, or whenever a
link or form specifies a target (e.g. target=_blank
or target=window-name
).
You can also open additional tabs by calling browser.open
. To close the
currently active tab, close the window itself.
You can access all open tabs from browser.tabs
. This property is an
associative array, you can access each tab by its index number, and iterate over
all open tabs using functions like forEach
and map
.
If a window was opened with a name, you can also access it by its name. Since
names may conflict with reserved properties/methods, you may need to use
browser.tabs.find
.
The value of a tab is the currently active window. That window changes when you
navigate forwards and backwards in history. For example, if you visited the URL
'/foo' and then the URL '/bar', the first tab (browser.tabs[0]
) would be a
window with the document from '/bar'. If you then navigate back in history, the
first tab would be the window with the document '/foo'.
The following operations are used for managing tabs:
Closes the tab with the given window.
Closes the currently open tab.
Returns an array of all open tabs.
Returns the tab with that index number.
Returns the tab with that name.
Closes all tabs.
This is a read/write property. It returns the currently active tab.
Can also be used to change the currently active tabe. You can set it to a
window (e.g. as currently returned from browser.current
), a window name or the
tab index number.
Dump a list of all open tabs to standard output, or the output stream.
Returns the index of the currently active tab.
Returns the number of currently opened tabs.
browser.open(url: 'http://example.com')
Opens and returns a new tab. Supported options are:
name
- Window name.url
- Load document from this URL.
Returns the currently active window, same as browser.tabs.current.
To make life easier, Zombie introduces a set of convenience assertions that you can access directly from the browser object. For example, to check that a page loaded successfuly:
browser.assert.success();
browser.assert.text('title', 'My Awesome Site');
browser.assert.element('#main');
These assertions are available from the browser
object since they operate on a
particular browser instance -- generally dependent on the currently open window,
or document loaded in that window.
Many assertions require an element/elements as the first argument, for example,
to compare the text content (assert.text
), or attribute value
(assert.attribute
). You can pass one of the following values:
- An HTML element or an array of HTML elements
- A CSS selector string (e.g. "h2", ".book", "#first-name")
Many assertions take an expected value and compare it against the actual value.
For example, assert.text
compares the expected value against the text contents
of one or more strings. The expected value can be one of:
- A JavaScript primitive value (string, number)
undefined
ornull
are used to assert the lack of value- A regular expression
- A function that is called with the actual value and returns true if the assertion is true
- Any other object will be matched using
assert.deepEqual
Note that in some cases the DOM specification indicates that lack of value is an
empty string, not null
/undefined
.
All assertions take an optional last argument that is the message to show if the assertion fails. Better yet, use a testing framework like Mocha that has good diff support and don't worry about these messages.
The following assertions are available:
Asserts the named attribute of the selected element(s) has the expected value.
Fails if no element found.
browser.assert.attribute('form', 'method', 'post);
browser.assert.attribute('form', 'action', '/customer/new');
// Disabled with no attribute value, i.e. <button disabled>
browser.assert.attribute('button', 'disabled', '');
// No disabled attribute i.e. <button>
browser.assert.attribute('button', 'disabled', null);
Asserts that selected element(s) has that and only that class name. May also be space-separated list of class names.
Fails if no element found.
browser.assert.className('form input[name=email]', 'has-error');
Asserts that a cookie exists and has the expected value, or if expected
is
null
, that no such cookie exists.
The identifier is either the name of a cookie, or an object with the property
name
and the optional properties domain
and path
.
browser.assert.cookie('flash', 'Missing email addres');
Asserts that one element matching selection exists.
Fails if no element or more than one matching element are found.
browser.assert.elements('form');
browser.assert.elements('form input[name=email]');
browser.assert.elements('form input[name=email].has-error');
Asserts how many elements exist in the selection.
The argument count
can be a number, or an object with the following
properties:
atLeast
- Expecting to find at least that many elementsatMost
- Expecting to find at most that many elementsexactly
- Expecting to find exactly that many elements
browser.assert.elements('form', 1);
browser.assert.elements('form input', 3);
browser.assert.elements('form input.has-error', { atLeast: 1 });
browser.assert.elements('form input:not(.has-error)', { atMost: 2 });
Evaluates the JavaScript expression in the context of the currently open window.
With one argument, asserts that the value is equal to true
.
With two/three arguments, asserts that the returned value matches the expected value.
browser.assert.evaluate('$('form').data('valid')');
browser.assert.evaluate('$('form').data('errors').length', 3);
Asserts that the global (window) property has the expected value.
Asserts that selected element(s) have the expected class name. Elements may
have other class names (unlike assert.className
).
Fails if no element found.
browser.assert.hasClass('form input[name=email]', 'has-error');
Asserts that selected element has the focus.
If the first argument is null
, asserts that no element has the focus.
Otherwise, fails if element not found, or if more than one element found.
browser.assert.hasFocus('form input:nth-child(1)');
Asserts that selected element(s) does not have the expected class name. Elements may
have other class names (unlike assert.className
).
Fails if no element found.
browser.assert.hasNoClass('form input', 'has-error');
Asserts that selected input field(s) (input
, textarea
, select
etc) have
the expected value.
Fails if no element found.
browser.assert.input('form input[name=text]', 'Head Eater');
Asserts that at least one link exists with the given selector, text and URL.
The selector can be a
, but a more specific selector is recommended. URL can
be relative to the current document.
Fails if no element is selected that also has the specified text content and URL.
browser.assert.link('footer a', 'Privacy Policy', '/privacy');
Asserts the browser prompted with a given message.
browser.assert.prompted('Are you sure?');
Asserts the browser was redirected when retrieving the current page.
Asserts the current page loaded successfully (status code 2xx or 3xx).
Asserts the current page loaded with the expected status code.
browser.assert.status(404);
Asserts that selected element(s) have the expected value for the named style property. For example:
Fails if no element found, or element style does not match expected value.
browser.assert.style('#show-hide.hidden', 'display', 'none');
browser.assert.style('#show-hide:not(.hidden)', 'display', '');
Asserts that selected element(s) have the expected text content. For example:
Fails if no element found that has that text content.
browser.assert.text('title', 'My Awesome Page');
Asserts the current page has the expected URL.
The expected URL can be one of:
- The full URL as a string
- A regular expression
- A function, called with the URL and returns true if the assertion is true
- An object, in which case individual properties are matched against the URL
For example:
browser.assert.url('http://localhost/foo/bar');
browser.assert.url({ pathame: '/foo/bar' });
browser.assert.url({ query: { name: 'joedoe' } });
Not seeing an assertion you want? You can add your own assertions to the
prototype of Browser.Assert
.
For example:
// Asserts the browser has the expected number of open tabs.
Browser.Assert.prototype.openTabs = function(expected, message) {
assert.equal(this.browser.tabs.length, expected, message);
};
Or application specific:
// Asserts which links is highlighted in the navigation bar
Browser.Assert.navigationOn = function(linkText) {
this.assert.element('.navigation-bar');
this.assert.text('.navigation-bar a.highlighted', linkText);
};
Each browser instance is an EventEmitter
, and will emit a variety of events
you can listen to.
Some things you can do with events:
- Trace what the browser is doing, e.g. log every page loaded, every DOM event emitted, every timeout fired
- Wait for something to happen, e.g. form submitted, link clicked, input element getting the focus
- Strip out code from HTML pages, e.g remove analytics code when running tests
- Add event listeners to the page before any JavaScript executes
- Mess with the browser, e.g. modify loaded resources, capture and change DOM events
Emitted whenever a message is printed to the console (console.log
,
console.error
, console.trace
, etc).
The first argument is the logging level, and the second argument is the message.
The logging levels are: debug
, error
, info
, log
, trace
and warn
.
Emitted when this window becomes the active window.
Emitted when this window is closed.
Emitted when the event loop goes empty.
Emitted after JavaScript code is evaluated.
The first argument is the JavaScript function or code (string). The second argument is the result. The third argument is the filename.
Emitted whenever a DOM event is fired on the target element, document or window.
Emitted whenever an element receives the focus.
Emitted when this window is no longer the active window.
Emitted whenever an interval (setInterval
) is fired.
The first argument is the function or code to evaluate, the second argument is the interval in milliseconds.
Emitted when a link is clicked.
The first argument is the URL of the new location, the second argument
identifies the target window (_self
, _blank
, window name, etc).
Emitted when a document has been loaded into a window or frame.
This event is emitted after the HTML is parsed, and some scripts executed.
Emitted when a document is about to be loaded into a window or frame.
This event is emitted when the document is still empty, before parsing any HTML.
Emitted when a new window is opened.
Emitted when following a redirect.
The first argument is the request, the second argument is the response that caused the redirect, and the third argument is the new request to follow the redirect. See Resources for more details.
The URL of the new resource to retrieve is given by response.url
.
Emitted before making a request to retrieve a resource.
The first argument is the request object. See Resources for more details.
Emitted after receiving the response (excluding redirects).
The first argument is the request object, the second argument is the response object. See Resources for more details.
Emitted whenever a form is submitted.
The first argument is the URL of the new location, the second argument
identifies the target window (_self
, _blank
, window name, etc).
Emitted whenever a timeout (setTimeout
) is fired.
The first argument is the function or code to evaluate, the second argument is the delay in milliseconds.
Zombie can retrieve with resources - HTML pages, scripts, XHR requests - over HTTP, HTTPS and from the file system.
Most work involving resources is done behind the scenes, but there are few notable features that you'll want to know about. Specifically, if you need to do any of the following:
- Inspect the history of retrieved resources, useful for troubleshooting issues related to resource loading
- Simulate a failed server
- Change the order in which resources are retrieved, or otherwise introduce delays to simulate a real world network
- Mock responses from servers you don't have access to, or don't want to access from test environment
- Request resources directly, but have Zombie handle cookies, authentication, etc
- Implement new mechanism for retrieving resources, for example, add new protocols or support new headers
Each browser provides access to its resources list through browser.resources
.
The resources list is an array of all resouces requested by the browser. You can iterate and manipulate it just like any other JavaScript array.
Each resource provides four properties:
request
- The request objectresponse
- The resource object (if received)error
- The error received instead of responsetarget
- The target element or document (when loading HTML page, script, etc)
The request object consists of:
method
- HTTP method, e.g. "GET"url
- The requested URLheaders
- All request headersbody
- The request body can beBuffer
or string; only applies to POST and PUT methodsmultipart
- Used instead of a body to support file uploadtime
- Timestamp when request was madetimeout
- Request timeout (0 for no timeout)
The response object consists of:
url
- The actual URL of the resource; different from request URL if there were any redirectsstatusCode
- HTTP status code, eg 200statusText
- HTTP static code as text, eg "OK"headers
- All response headersbody
- The response body, may beBuffer
or string, depending on the content type encodingredirects
- Number of redirects followed (0 if no redirects)time
- Timestamp when response was completed
Request for loading pages and scripts include the target DOM element or document. This is used internally, and may also give you more insight as to why a request is being made.
To help in testing, Zombie includes some convenience methods for mocking, failing and delaying responses.
For example, to mock a response:
browser.resources.mock('http://3rd.party.api/v1/request', {
statusCode: 200,
headers: { 'ContentType': 'application/json' },
body: JSON.stringify({ 'count': 5 })
})
In the real world, servers and networks often fail. You can test to for these conditions by asking Zombie to simulate a failure. For example:
browser.resources.fail('/form/post');
Resource URLs can be absolute or relative. Relative URLs will match any request with the same path, so only use relative URLs that are specific to a given request.
Another issue you'll encounter in real-life applications are network latencies. When running tests, Zombie will request resources in the order in which they appear on the page, and likely receive them from the local server in that same order.
Occassionally you'll need to force the server to return resources in a different order, for example, to check what happens when script A loads after script B. You can introduce a delay into any response as simple as:
browser.resources.delay('http://3d.party.api/v1/request', 50);
Zombie uses a pipeline to operate on resources. You can extend that pipeline with your own set of handlers, for example, to support additional protocols, content types, special handlers, better resource mocking, etc.
The pipeline consists of a set of handlers. There are two types of handlers:
Functions with two arguments deal with requests. They are called with the request object and a callback, and must call that callback with one of:
- No arguments to pass control to the next handler
- An error to stop processing and return that error
null
and the response objec to return that response
Functions with three arguments deal with responses. They are called with the request object, response object and a callback, and must call that callback with one of:
- No arguments to pass control to the next handler
- An error to stop processing and return that error
To add a new handle to the end of the pipeline:
browser.resources.addHandler(function(request, next) {
// Let's delay this request by 1/10th second
setTimeout(function() {
Resources.httpRequest(request, next);
}, Math.random() * 100);
});
If you need anything more complicated, you can access the pipeline directly via
browser.resources.pipeline
.
You can add handlers to all browsers via Browser.Resources.addHandler
. These
handlers are automatically added to every new browser.resources
instance.
Browser.Resources.addHandler(function(request, response, next) {
// Log the response body
console.log('Response body: ' + response.body);
next();
});
When handlers are executed, this
is set to the browser instance.
If you need to retrieve of operate on resources directly, you can do that as well, using all the same features available to Zombie, including mocks, cookies, authentication, etc.
Adds a handler to the pipeline of this browser instance. To add a handler to the
pipeline of every browser instance, use Browser.Resources.addHandler
.
Retrieve the resource with the given URL, but only after a delay.
Dumps the resources list to the output stream (defaults to standard output stream).
Do not attempt to retrieve the resource with the given URL, but act as if the request failed with the given message.
This is used to simulate network failures (can't resolve hostname, can't make
connection, etc). To simulate server failures (status codes 5xx), use
resources.mock
.
Returns the current pipeline (array of handlers) for this browser instance.
Retrieves a resource with the given URL and passes response to the callback.
For example:
browser.resources.get('http://some.service', function(error, response) {
console.log(response.statusText);
console.log(response.body);
});
Do not attempt to retrieve the resource with the given URL, but return the response object instead.
Posts a document to the resource with the given URL and passes the response to the callback.
Supported options are:
body
- Request document bodyheaders
- Headers to include in the requestparams
- Parameters to pass in the document bodytimeout
- Request timeout in milliseconds (0 ornull
for no timeout)
For example:
var params = { 'count': 5 };
browser.resources.post('http://some.service',
{ params: params },
function(error, response) {
. . .
});
var headers = { 'Content-Type': 'application/x-www-form-urlencoded' };
browser.resources.post('http://some.service',
{ headers: headers, body: 'count=5' },
function(error, response) {
. . .
});
Makes an HTTP request to the resource and passes the response to the callback.
Supported options are:
body
- Request document bodyheaders
- Headers to include in the requestparams
- Parameters to pass in the query string (GET
,DELETE
) or document body (POST
,PUT
)timeout
- Request timeout in milliseconds (0 ornull
for no timeout)
For example:
browser.resources.request('DELETE',
'http://some.service',
function(error) {
. . .
});
Reset any special resource handling from a previous call to delay
, fail
or
mock
.
You can use DNS masking to test your application with real domain names. For example:
Browser.dns.localhost('*.example.com');
Browser.defaults.site = 'http://example.com:3000';
browser = new Browser();
browser.visit('/here', function(error, browser) {
browser.assert.url('http://example.com:3000/here');
});
The DNS masking offered by Zombie only works within the local Node process, and will not interfere or affect any other application you run.
Use Browser.dns.map(domain, type, ip)
to map a domain name, and a particular
record type (e.g. A, CNAME even MX) to the given IP address. For example:
Browser.dns.map('*.example.com', 'A', '127.0.0.1'); // IPv4
Browser.dns.map('*.example.com', 'AAAA', '::1'); // IPv6
Browser.dns.map('*.example.com', 'CNAME', 'localhost');
Since these are the most common mapping, you can call map
with two arguments
and Zombie will infer if the second argumet is an IPv4 address, IPv6 address or
CNAME.
Of for short, just map the A and AAAA records like this:
Browser.dns.localhost('*.example.com') // IPv4 and IPv6
If you use an asertisk, it will map the domain itself and all sub-domains,
including www.example.com
, assets.example.com
and example.com
. Don't use
an asterisk if you only want to map the specific domain.
For MX records:
Browser.dns.map('example.com', 'MX', { exchange: 'localhost', priority: 10 });
Your test server is most likely not running on a privileged port, but you can tell Zombie to map port 80 to the test server's port for a given domain.
For example, if your test server is running on port 3000, you can tell Zombie to map port 80 to port 3000:
Browser.ports.map('localhost', 3000);
If you're testing sub-domains, you can also apply the mapping to all sub-domains with an asterisk, for example:
Browser.ports.map('*.example.com', 3000);
To see what your code is doing, you can use console.log
and friends from both
client-side scripts and your test code.
If you want to disable console output from scripts, set browser.silent = true
or once for all browser instances with Browser.default.silent = true
.
For more details about what Zombie is doing (windows opened, requests made,
event loop, etc), run with the environment variable DEBUG=zombie
. Zombie uses
the debug module, so if your code also
uses it, you can selectively control which modules should output debug
information.
Some objects, like the browser, history, resources, tabs and windows also
include dump
method that will dump the current state to the console.