Karma

Intro

Karma is used to run AngularJS specs.

Getting set up

On OS X Mavericks

We use an npm package.json to install karma and associated testing packages. Amusingly, one can install npm with homebrew, and vice-versa. I chose to install npm with homebrew:

$ brew update
$ brew install npm

Our Karma setup requires PhantomJS. The package.json file specifies a version of PhantomJS, but this will simply create a link to any existing version of PhantomJS in the path that matches the version requirements. If you want to use an existing PhantomJS install, make sure the version matches the one specified in package.json and that the executable in is your path. I installed PhantomJS globally using:

$ npm install -g phantomjs-prebuilt

Make sure to specify a version by appending '@x.x.x' if required

You should now be able to jump straight into installing the npm page. The package contains Karma, PhantomJS and Chrome launchers, CoffeeScript preprocessor and the Jasmine testing framework.

$ npm install

Check that NodeJS is installed. If you install from a package manager your bin may be called nodejs so you just need to symlink it:

$ ln -s /usr/bin/nodejs /usr/bin/node

And then you should be ready to go (see 'Usage of Karma')....

On Ubuntu 12.04

The npm shipped with 12.04 is broken, giving errors like: Error: failed to fetch from registry: karma or Error: No compatible version found: karma

However, Chris Lea's PPA works. Here's how to install it:

$ sudo add-apt-repository ppa:chris-lea/node.js 
$ sudo apt-get update
$ sudo apt-get install nodejs

From there, follow the instructions for OS X Mavericks.

Usage of Karma

Running AngularJS specs with karma has been made pretty simple through use of a rake task which pulls together the karma configuration file (config/ng-test.conf.js), and a manifest file (spec/javascripts/application_spec.js) and then passes them on to karma to run:

$ bundle exec rake karma:start

or if you are using zeus:

$ zeus rake karma:start