Is it possible to run a TestCafe test within Express.js?

Question

I am trying to figure out if it is possible to run a TestCafe test from within the context of an Express.js app. My idea was to create a form, accept input (like a UPC code), and from clicking submit on the form it would cause a TestCafe test to spawn in headless mode (somewhere) and load that upc into this page https://www.ebay.com/sh/research . From there, TestCafe would obtain the results from the page and stick them in my database.

I placed the test in a file named tests.js and put it like this routes/tests.js

// routes/test.js
const eBayScrapingHub =  (upc) => {
    test('Scraper 1', async t => {
    await t
        .wait(3000)
        .typeText(Selector('input[name="productId"]'), upc)
        .click(Selector('div#mainContent button[type="submit"].search-button.btn.btn--medium.btn--primary'))
        .wait(5000)
        console.log('finished!')
    });
 }

 module.exports = eBayScrapingHub;

The routes file itself, named ebay.js

// routes/ebay.js
const { eBayScrapingHub } = require('./tests');
const { Selector } = require('testcafe');

// Process Ebay Form
router.post('/', ensureAuthenticated, (req, res)=>{

        var query = req.body.input;

        console.log('This is your query: ', query);

        fixture `Ebay Seller Hub Scraper`
            .page `https://www.ebay.com/sh/research`;
            eBayScrapingHub(query);

    }
});

The form

// views/ebay/add.handlebars
<div class="card card-body">
    <h3>Add UPC</h3>
    <p>Input a UPC Code to search eBay</p>
    <form action="/ebay" method="post">
        <div class="form-group">
            <label for="input">Input</label>
            <input type="text" class="form-control" name="input" required>
        </div>
        <button type="submit" class="btn btn-primary">Submit</button>
    </form>
</div>

Unfortunately, all sorts of errors appear the moment I tried doing this.

I tried importing the selector with import { Selector } from 'testcafe' and got this error:

import { Selector } from 'testcafe';
       ^

SyntaxError: Unexpected token {

So I changed it to const { Selector } = require('testcafe'); to make the error go away.

Now it won't work due to not recognizing "fixture":

ReferenceError: fixture is not defined

Can anyone let me know if this is possible or how to do this right? Thank you!

Answer 1

Do not mix TestCafe fixture/test definitions with your custom code. Keep it separately.

Take a look at the Programming Interface article that describes how to run TestCafe tests from your custom Node.js code.

Answer 2

For others whom this may be useful for in the future, I have solved this in the following way:

In express, the /routes file:

// /routes/testcafe.js
const express = require('express');
const router = express.Router();
const createTestCafe = require('testcafe');
var testcafe = null;

router.get('/testcafe', (req, res) => {
    createTestCafe('localhost', 1337, 1338)
    .then(tc => {
        testcafe = tc;
        const runner = testcafe.createRunner();
        console.log('About to start tests/myTest.js!');

        return runner
        .src(['/root/user/express_server/routes/tests/myTest.js'])
        .browsers(['firefox:headless'])
        .run()
    })
    .then(failedCount => {
        console.log('Tests failed: ' + failedCount);

        testcafe.close()
    });

});

module.exports = router;

After placing this above code in the file, it completely fired the test successfully by just sending a get request to my server at address like this:

http://express_server_ip:port/testcafe