sailsjs testing: how to truncate the database

June 12, 2016

SailsJS is a NodeJS MVC framework that we use for the OpenOpps Platform. Sails has some basic testing docs, but it doesn’t explain how to set up the framework nicely where the database is dropped in between tests. I find myself always re-figuring out these patterns when I write experimental apps.

With an in-memory database, this bootstrap.test.js will drop the database between tests:

var sails = require('sails');

before(function(done) {
  sails.lift({
    // test config
    environment: 'test',
    port: 9999,   // so we can run the app and tests at the same time
    hostName: 'localhost:9999',
    connections: {
      testDB: {
        adapter: 'sails-memory'
      }
    },
    models: {
      connection: 'testDB'
    },
  }, function(err, server) {
    if (err) return done(err);
    done(err, sails);
  });
});

after(function(done) {
  sails.lower(done);
});

beforeEach(function(done) {
  // Drops database between each test.  This works because we use
  // the memory database
  sails.once('hook:orm:reloaded', done);
  sails.emit('hook:orm:reload');
});

When I need to use postgres, Waterline doesn’t expose SQL truncate which would be much faster, instead this bootstrap.test.js will destroy all the models:

var async = require('async');
var sails = require('sails');

before(function(done) {
  sails.lift({
    // test config
    environment: 'test',
    port: 9999,   // so we can run the app and tests at the same time
    hostName: 'localhost:9999',
    models: {
      connection: 'postgresql'
    },
  }, function(err, server) {
    if (err) return done(err);
    done(err, sails);
  });
});

afterEach(function(done) {
  destroyFuncs = [];
  for (modelName in sails.models) {
    destroyFuncs.push(function(callback) {
      sails.models[modelName].destroy({})
      .exec(function(err) {
        callback(null, err)
      });
    })
  }
  async.parallel(destroyFuncs, function(err, results) {
    done(err);
  })
});

after(function(done) {
  sails.lower(done);
})

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