I decided to finally learn unit testing, so I downloaded QUnit (after looking at the 20,000 different unit testing options), and figured I’d give porting tiny SignalsLite to JavaScript a try, and see how the process goes.
While doing that, I found a crazy IE7/IE8 JS bug, that I’m sure has had me scratching my head in the past. Here is a quick unit test to show the problem:
[sourcecode language=”javascript”]
test( "Basic Requirements", function testReqs() {
expect(1);
var T;
(function makeT() {
T=function T(){}
T.prototype.test = 1;
})();
ok((new T).test, "Instance of exported T should have prototype methods");
});
[/sourcecode]
If you run that IE7 or IE8 it’ll fail!
The cool thing is, without having created unit tests for SignalsLite.js, I would never have known that could be an issue, and instead would continue to scratch my head when stuff like that broke in IE7/8. I found this because I was trying to export SignalLite from within a closure (I try to always define my stuff inside of closures to avoid namespace pollution), with this:
[sourcecode language=”javascript”]
(function() { "use strict"; // standard header
// naming inline functions makes the debug console easier to read.
window.SignalLite = function SignalLite() {
// stuff
}
SignalLite.prototype = {
// methods
};
// The fix is to use an anonymous function, or export elsewhere:
// window.SignalLite = SignalLite;
})();
[/sourcecode]
For whatever reason, that doesn’t work in IE7 and IE8. Unit testing is crazy!
If you are interested, go fork SignalsLite.json GitHib.
P.S. You can run the SignalsLite.js unit tests here to see the fail for yourself! I disabled that test in the SignalsLite.js tests.
