Mastering React Test-Driven Development - Second Edition: Build simple and maintainable web apps with React, Redux, and GraphQL

Learn test-driven and behavior-driven development techniques that will give you greater confidence when building React applications

Key Features

• Explore the TDD process, how it works, and why it will help you write maintainable React apps
• Develop a component testing framework from scratch, which will help you understand the mechanics of good unit testing
• Reduce complexity by using unit tests and end-to-end acceptance tests to drive the design of your apps

Book Description

Test-driven development (TDD) is a programming workflow that helps you build your apps by specifying behavior as automated tests. The TDD workflow future-proofs apps so that they can be modified without fear of breaking existing functionality. Another benefit of TDD is that it helps software development teams communicate their intentions more clearly, by way of test specifications.

This book teaches you how to apply TDD when building React apps. You'll create a sample app using the same React libraries and tools that professional React developers use, such as Jest, React Router, Redux, Relay (GraphQL), Cucumber, and Puppeteer. The TDD workflow is supported by various testing techniques and patterns, which are useful even if you're not following the TDD process. This book covers these techniques by walking you through the creation of a component test framework. You'll learn automated testing theory which will help you work with any of the test libraries that are in standard usage today, such as React Testing Library. This second edition has been revised with a stronger focus on concise code examples and has been fully updated for React 18.

By the end of this TDD book, you'll be able to use React, Redux, and GraphQL to develop robust web apps.

What you will learn

• Build test-driven applications using React 18 and Jest
• Understand techniques and patterns for writing great automated tests
• Use test doubles and mocks effectively
• Test-drive browser APIs, including the Fetch API and the WebSocket API
• Integrate with libraries such as React Router, Redux, and Relay (GraphQL)
• Use Cucumber.js and Puppeteer to build Behaviour- Driven Development (BDD) style tests for your applications
• Build and test async Redux code using redux-saga and expect-redux

Who this book is for

This book is for frontend developers who are looking to improve their testing practices and increase the quality and maintainability of their applications. To make the most of this book, you'll need knowledge of the JavaScript programming language.

Table of Contents

1. First Steps with Test-Driven Development
2. Rendering Lists and Detail Views
3. Refactoring the Test Suite
4. Test-Driving Data Input
5. Adding Complex Form Interactions
6. Exploring Test Doubles
7. Testing useEffect and Mocking Components
8. Building an Application Component
9. Form Validation
10. Filtering and Searching Data
11. Test-Driving React Router
12. Test-Driving Redux
13. Test-Driving GraphQL
14. Building a Logo Interpreter
15. Adding Animation
16. Working with WebSockets
17. Writing Your First Cucumber Test
18. Adding Features Guided by Cucumber Tests
19. Understanding TDD in the Wider Testing Landscape

Daniel Irvine is a UK-based software consultant. He helps businesses simplify their existing codebases and assists dev teams in improving the quality of their software using eXtreme programming (XP) practices. He has been coaching developers for many years and co-founded the Queer Code London meetup.