How to mock modules for angular testing

Look into requireJs to load your dependencies. With RequireJs, you can load different files for your production code and your test code.

Here is a (basic) example.

Let's say you have a javascript file with defines your angular module (named e.g app.js):

define(['dependency1Module', 'dependency2Module'], function(dependency1Module, dependency2Module) {
   var app = angular.module('app',['dependenceny1Module', 'dependenceny2Module']);
   return app;
}

Modules dependency1Module, dependency2Module, ... have a similar setup:

define(function() {
   var module = angular.module('dependenceny1Module');
   return module;
}

Now you need a bootstrap file (named e.g. bootstrap.js to define the location of the files. So you'll have two bootstrap files: one your your production code (using possible minified versions of some libraries) and a version for test purposes:

require.config({
  baseUrl: "path/to/production|test scripts",
  paths: {
    angular: 'path/to/angular',
    jquery: 'path/to/jquery',
  },
  shim: {
    angular: {
      exports: 'angular',
      deps: ['jquery']
    }
  }
});

require(["angular", "app", ], function(angular, app) {
  angular.element(document).ready(function() {
    angular.bootstrap(document, ['app']);
  });
});

Instead of changing the baseUrl, you could define different paths for the modules you want to mock:

paths: {
   dependency1Module: 'path/to.mock/dependency1Module'
}

Last step is to plugin the bootstrap file in your html code (production or test):

<script type="text/javascript" src="path/to/require.js"></script>
<script type="text/javascript" src="path/to/bootstrap(production|test).js"></script>

This is a basic requirejs setup. Of course, before you can use a certain angular type (e.g. controller, service, ...), you'll need to setup a requirejs module for it too (and requireit e.g in your app.js).

Modularizing your own app will help.

If your app looks like this:

var app = angular.module('app',[dependenceny1Module, dependenceny2Module, dependenceny3Module......])

and contains 50 things like filters, directives and controllers. Some of them depend on dependenceny1Module and some of them depend on dependenceny2Module.

Break them apart based on their responsibilities and dependencies.

var mymodule1 = angular.module('mymodule1',[dependenceny2Module, dependenceny3Module])

var mymodule2 = angular.module('mymodule2',[dependenceny1Module,])

Then make your app depend on your own modules:

var app = angular.module('app',[ mymodule1, mymodule2])

Your app should have mostly bootstrap code.

Now when you want to test controller13 of mymodule2, you will only have to mock mymodule2's dependencies if that module has dependencies. So test suites will not load app they will only load the module they test.

See this example where the tests for MyMainCtrl1 of mymodule1 only care about s1 from external1 even if the app as a whole depends on external1, external2 and external3.

It all depends on what you actually want to test, if you are unit testing you want load/mock as little as possible. For example, if you unit test a controller, you mock the module and only load/mock whatever dependencies it uses.