How to properly make mock throw an error in Jest?

Question

I'm testing my GraphQL api using Jest.

I'm using a separate test suit for each query/mutation

I have 2 tests (each one in a separate test suit) where I mock one function (namely, Meteor's callMethod) that is used in mutations.

  it('should throw error if email not found', async () => {
    callMethod
      .mockReturnValue(new Error('User not found [403]'))
      .mockName('callMethod');

    const query = FORGOT_PASSWORD_MUTATION;
    const params = { email: '[email protected]' };

    const result = await simulateQuery({ query, params });

    console.log(result);

    // test logic
    expect(callMethod).toBeCalledWith({}, 'forgotPassword', {
      email: '[email protected]',
    });

    // test resolvers
  });

When I console.log(result) I get

{ data: { forgotPassword: true } }

This behaviour is not what I want because in .mockReturnValue I throw an Error and therefore expect result to have an error object

Before this test, however, another is ran

 it('should throw an error if wrong credentials were provided', async () => {
    callMethod
      .mockReturnValue(new Error('cannot login'))
      .mockName('callMethod');

And it works fine, the error is thrown

I guess the problem is that mock doesn't get reset after the test finishes. In my jest.conf.js I have clearMocks: true

Each test suit is in a separate file, and I mock functions before tests like this:

import simulateQuery from '../../../helpers/simulate-query';

import callMethod from '../../../../imports/api/users/functions/auth/helpers/call-accounts-method';

import LOGIN_WITH_PASSWORD_MUTATION from './mutations/login-with-password';

jest.mock(
  '../../../../imports/api/users/functions/auth/helpers/call-accounts-method'
);

describe('loginWithPassword mutation', function() {
...

UPDATE

When I substituted .mockReturnValue with .mockImplementation everything worked out as expected:

callMethod.mockImplementation(() => {
  throw new Error('User not found');
});

But that doesn't explain why in another test .mockReturnValue works fine...

It looks like your mock is returning an error object, not throwing it. Without seeing your code that you are testing, I can only share the experience I had. I forgot to mock a function called in my mutation, which caused an error to be thrown unintentionally. Perhaps there is something similar happening for you? — Rhuarc13

eduardomoroni eduardomoroni · Accepted Answer · 2018-06-02T11:57:56

Change .mockReturnValue with .mockImplementation:

yourMockInstance.mockImplementation(() => {
  throw new Error();
});

If it's a promise you can also to .rejects www.jestjs.io/docs/en/asynchronous#resolves--rejects

How to properly make mock throw an error in Jest?

2 Answers