Testing Angular Service in Karma: Same Test, Different Results - angularjs

Question

I'm trying to test an Angular service with Karma, and was getting some strange results, so just for kicks I made two tests that were identical to see if I would get the same results, but I didn't:
describe('Profile Data Service', function() {
var LoginData, rootScope, $httpBackend;
beforeEach(module('myApp'));
describe('get profile data', function() {
beforeEach(inject(function(_LoginData_, $rootScope, _$httpBackend_) {
LoginData = _LoginData_;
LoginData.username= "jsmith";
LoginData.token = "token";
rootScope = $rootScope;
$httpBackend = _$httpBackend_;
}));
it('should get profile data on instantiation', inject(function(ProfileDataService) {
$httpBackend.expect('POST', 'http://mytestserver.com/api/', {
params: [{
username: "jsmith",
token: "token",
method: "getProfile"
}]
})
.respond({
result: {
address: "111 Main St."
city: "Los Angeles",
state: "CA"
}
});
$httpBackend.flush();
expect(ProfileDataService.profileData.address).toMatch("111 Main St.");
}));
it('should get profile data on instantiation', inject(function(ProfileDataService) {
$httpBackend.expect('POST', 'http://mytestserver.com/api/', {
params: [{
username: "jsmith",
token: "token",
method: "getProfile"
}]
})
.respond({
result: {
address: "111 Main St."
city: "Los Angeles",
state: "CA"
}
});
$httpBackend.flush();
expect(ProfileDataService.profileData.address).toMatch("111 Main St.");
}));
});
});
The first test passes, but the second test states that profileData is undefined. They are identical tests. I am assuming that for each it that the ProfileDataService is being re-initialized, but that may not be the case. If that's not true, how do I create separate tests so that my service is destroyed and re-initialized for each test case?
The logic for the service is fairly straightforward:
(function() {
'use strict';
angular.module('servicesModule')
.service('ProfileDataService', ProfileDataService);
ProfileDataService.$inject = ["$http", "$q", "LoginData", "CacheFactory"];
function ProfileDataService($http, $q, LoginData, CacheFactory) {
var ProfileDataService = this;
(function() {
init();
})();
function init() {
getProfile().then(function(profileData) {
ProileDataService.profileData = profileData;
});
}
function getProfile() {
var deferred = $q.defer();
var data = {
params: [{
username: LoginData.username,
token: LoginData.token,
method: "getProfile"
}]
};
var profileDataCache = CacheFactory.get('profileDataCache');
if (profileDataCache.get('profileData') && !invalidateCache) {
deferred.resolve(profileDataCache.get('profileData'));
}
else {
$http.post('http://mytestserver.com/api/', data)
.success(function(data) {
profileDataCache.put('profileData', response.result);
deferred.resolve(data.result);
});
}
return deferred.promise;
}
}
})();
I should also note that I've tried adding rootScope.$digest() in different places in the test, but that doesn't seem to make any difference. I thought manually triggering the digest cycle would ensure that the http post was caught and the response mocked.
Edit: I left out a huge detail... angular-cache. I forgot to mention that I was using a cacheing plugin. This was the reason for my problem. After creating a plunker and seeing that I was getting consistent results for identical tests, I knew there was something I was failing to realize. The second test was not making a POST request because of my cacheing logic.

Answer 1

My issue was failing to realize that my use of a cache was giving me different results for each test. Specifically, my service logic prevented a second POST to the api if a cache had already been persisted for that response.