AngularJS: Setting up a mocked service to use in controller unit tests.

mock-service-example.js

// Mocked Service
angular.module('mock.users', []).
    factory('UserService', function($q) {
        var userService = {};

        userService.get = function() {
            return {
                id: 8888,
                name: "test user"
            }
        };
        
        // example stub method that returns a promise, e.g. if original method returned $http.get(...)
        userService.fetch = function() {
            var mockUser = {
                id: 8888,
                name: "test user"
            };
            return $q.when(mockUser);
        };

        // other stubbed methods
        
        return userService;
    });

// Controller Unit Tests
describe('My Controller', function() {
    var ctrl, scope;

    beforeEach(module('module.containing.controller'));
    
    // include previous module containing mocked service which will override actual service, because it's declared later
    beforeEach(module('mock.users')); 

    beforeEach(inject(function($controller, $rootScope, _UserService_) { // inject mocked service
        scope = $rootScope.$new();

        ctrl = $controller('MyController', {
            $scope: scope,
            UserService: _UserService_
        });

    }));
    
    // unit tests go here
    
  });

Great gist @alicial! I've question related to this. How would I mock the service in a directive instead? Is the same approach reusable?

Hey =)

Greaat gist. Thanks. I've been looking for this for long.

I experienced weird issues when mocking like

  var getListDeferred;
  beforeEach(module(function($provide) {
    $provide.service('thingApi', function($q) {
      this.getList = jasmine.createSpy('getList').and.callFake(function() {
        var deferred = $q.defer();
        getListDeferred = deferred;
        return deferred.promise;
      });
    });
  }));

So I'm gonna try your solution.

Hey Alicial, thanks for the solution.

Thanks for this ;)

More helpful than SO. Cheers