FAQ

Which get method should I use?

See Which Query Should I Use

Can I write unit tests with this library?

Definitely yes! You can write unit, integration, and end-to-end tests with this library.

As you write your tests, keep in mind:

The more your tests resemble the way your software is used, the more confidence they can give you. - 17 Feb 2018

What if my app is localized and I don't have access to the text in test?

This is fairly common. Our first bit of advice is to try to get the default text used in your tests. That will make everything much easier (more than just using this utility). If that's not possible, then you're probably best to just stick with data-testids (which is not bad anyway).

I really don't like data-testids, but none of the other queries make sense. Do I have to use a data-testid?

Definitely not. That said, a common reason people don't like the data-testid attribute is they're concerned about shipping that to production. I'd suggest that you probably want some simple E2E tests that run in production on occasion to make certain that things are working smoothly. In that case the data-testid attributes will be very useful. Even if you don't run these in production, you may want to run some E2E tests that run on the same code you're about to ship to production. In that case, the data-testid attributes will be valuable there as well.

All that said, if you really don't want to ship data-testid attributes, then you can use this simple babel plugin to remove them.

If you don't want to use them at all, then you can simply use regular DOM methods and properties to query elements off your container.

const firstLiInDiv = container.querySelector('div li')
const allLisInDiv = container.querySelectorAll('div li')
const rootElement = container.firstChild

What if I’m iterating over a list of items that I want to put the data-testid="item" attribute on. How do I distinguish them from each other?

You can make your selector just choose the one you want by including :nth-child in the selector.

const thirdLiInUl = container.querySelector('ul > li:nth-child(3)')

Or you could use getAllByRole to query the listitem role and access the index in question:

const items = [
  /* your items */
]
const {container} = render(/* however you render this stuff */)
const thirdItem = getAllByRole(container, 'listitem')[2]

Help! I can't access component methods or the component instance!

This is intentional.

We want you to focus on testing the output and functionality of the component as it is observed by the user and to avoid worrying about the implementation details of the component.

We believe this leads to less brittle and more meaningful test code.

Please refer to the Guiding Principles of this testing library for more info.