why is jasmine-node not picking up my helper script?

jasmine, javascript, node.js, testing, unit-testing

Solution

In node, everything is namespaced to it's js file. To make the function callable by other files, change TestHelper.js to look like this:

var helper_func = function() {
    console.log("IN HELPER FUNC");
};
// exports is the "magic" variable that other files can read
exports.helper_func = helper_func;

And then change your my_test.spec.js to look like this:

// include the helpers and get a reference to it's exports variable
var helpers = require('./TestHelpers');

describe ('Example Test', function() {
  it ('should use the helper function', function() {
    helpers.helper_func(); // note the change here too
    expect(true).toBe(true);
  }); 
});

and, lastly, I believe `jasmine-node .` will run every file in the directory sequentially - but you don't need to run the helpers. Instead you could move them to a different directory (and change the `./` in the `require()` to the correct path), or you could just run `jasmine-node *.spec.js`.

Problem

This question is likely based in my lack of previous experience with node.js, but I was hoping jasmine-node would just let me run my jasmine specs from the command line. TestHelper.js: ``` var helper_func = function() { console.log("IN HELPER FUNC"); }; ``` my_test.spec.js: ``` describe ('Example Test', function() { it ('should use the helper function', function() { helper_func(); expect(true).toBe(true); }); }); ``` Those are the only two files in the directory. Then, when I do: ``` jasmine-node . ``` I get ``` ReferenceError: helper_func is not defined ``` I'm sure the answer to this is easy, but I didn't find any super-simple intros, or anything obvious on github. Any advice or help would be greatly appreciated! Thanks!

Original source