chai-iso8601

Chai assertion to check dates in the ISO-8601 format.

• Installation
• Usage
  • Operators
  • Margin of error

Developed at the Media Engineering Institute (HEIG-VD).

Installation

$> npm install --save-dev chai-iso8601

Usage

Basic usage allows you to check that a string is a valid ISO-8601 date and represents the expected time.

const chai = require('chai');

// Note the extra call (chai-iso8601 returns a factory function).
chai.use(require('chai-iso8601')());

// Simple usage
const expectedDateString = '2001-01-01T00:00:00Z';
chai.expect('2001-01-01T00:00:00Z').to.be.iso8601(expectedDateString);

// With a date object
const expectedDate = new Date(2001, 0, 1, 0, 0, 0, 0);
chai.expect('2001-01-01T00:00:00Z').to.be.iso8601(expectedDate);

// With a moment object
const expectedMoment = require('moment')('2001-01-01T00:00:00Z');
chai.expect('2001-01-01T00:00:00Z').to.be.iso8601(expectedMoment);

Operators

chai-iso8601 includes operators to perform more complex assertions on dates. All the following assertions will pass:

// Check that a string is an ISO-8601 date that is equal to another date (this is the default operator used above).
chai.expect('2000-01-01T00:00:00Z').to.be.iso8601('eq', '2000-01-01T00:00:00Z');

// Check that a string is an ISO-8601 date that is after another date (and not the same).
chai.expect('2000-01-01T00:00:00Z').to.be.iso8601('gt', '1999-12-31T23:59:00Z');

// Check that a string is an ISO-8601 date that is after or the same as another date.
chai.expect('2000-01-01T00:00:00Z').to.be.iso8601('gte', '2000-01-01T00:00:00Z');
chai.expect('2001-01-01T00:00:00Z').to.be.iso8601('gte', '2000-01-01T00:00:00Z');

// Check that a string is an ISO-8601 date that is before another date (and not the same).
chai.expect('2000-01-01T00:00:00Z').to.be.iso8601('lt', '2001-01-01T00:00:00Z');

// Check that a string is an ISO-8601 date that is before or the same as another date.
chai.expect('2000-01-01T00:00:00Z').to.be.iso8601('lte', '2000-01-01T00:00:00Z');
chai.expect('1999-01-01T00:00:00Z').to.be.iso8601('lte', '2000-01-01T00:00:00Z');

Margin of error

You may pass an additional number representing a margin of error that the date must be within. This can be useful in tests if you know the approximate value of a date but not its exact value.

Using a margin changes the behavior of the operators. All the following assertions will pass:

// Check that a string is an ISO-8601 date that is equal to another date with a margin of one second.
chai.expect('2000-01-01T00:00:00Z').to.be.iso8601('eq', '2000-01-01T00:00:00Z', 1000);
chai.expect('1999-12-31T23:59:59Z').to.be.iso8601('eq', '2000-01-01T00:00:00Z', 1000);
chai.expect('2000-01-01T00:00:01Z').to.be.iso8601('eq', '2000-01-01T00:00:00Z', 1000);

// Check that a string is an ISO-8601 date that is after another date but no more than one second.
chai.expect('2000-01-01T00:00:00Z').to.be.iso8601('gt', '1999-12-31T23:59:59Z', 1000);
chai.expect('1999-12-31T23:59:59.666Z').to.be.iso8601('gt', '1999-12-31T23:59:59Z', 1000);

// Check that a string is an ISO-8601 date that is after or the same as another date but no more than one second.
chai.expect('2000-01-01T00:00:00Z').to.be.iso8601('gte', '2000-01-01T00:00:00Z', 1000);
chai.expect('2000-01-01T00:00:01Z').to.be.iso8601('gte', '2000-01-01T00:00:00Z', 1000);

// Check that a string is an ISO-8601 date that is before another date but no more than one second.
chai.expect('1999-12-31T29:59:59Z').to.be.iso8601('lt', '2000-01-01T00:00:00Z');
chai.expect('1999-12-31T29:59:59.666Z').to.be.iso8601('lt', '2000-01-01T00:00:00Z');

// Check that a string is an ISO-8601 date that is before or the same as another date but no more than one second.
chai.expect('2000-01-01T00:00:00Z').to.be.iso8601('lte', '2000-01-01T00:00:00Z', 1000);
chai.expect('1999-12-31T23:59:59.666Z').to.be.iso8601('lte', '2000-01-01T00:00:00Z', 1000);

Note that the following assertions WILL NOT PASS although they would without a margin of error:

// The date is after the specified one, but it exceeds the margin of error of 500 milliseconds.
chai.expect('2000-01-01T00:00:00Z').to.be.iso8601('gt', '1999-12-31T23:59:59Z', 500);
chai.expect('2000-01-01T00:00:00Z').to.be.iso8601('gte', '1999-12-31T23:59:59Z', 500);

// The date is before the specified one, but it exceeds the margin of error of 500 milliseconds.
chai.expect('1999-12-31T29:59:59Z').to.be.iso8601('lt', '2000-01-01T00:00:00Z', 500);
chai.expect('1999-12-31T29:59:59Z').to.be.iso8601('lte', '2000-01-01T00:00:00Z', 500);

If you are using a margin of error in your tests, you might want to make it mandatory so that it throws an error if you forget to specify one.

const chai = require('chai');

// Note the extra call (chai-iso8601 returns a factory function).
chai.use(require('chai-iso8601')({
  marginRequired: true
}));

// Error thrown! (margin is missing)
chai.expect('2000-01-01T00:00:00Z').to.be.iso8601('gt', '1999-12-31T23:59:59Z');

// No error thrown
chai.expect('2000-01-01T00:00:00Z').to.be.iso8601('gt', '1999-12-31T23:59:59Z', 1000);

// Use a margin of zero if you don't need a margin for that particular test.
chai.expect('2000-01-01T00:00:00Z').to.be.iso8601('gt', '1999-12-31T23:59:59Z', 0);