Unit testing controllers (Jasmine/Angular) that run code when the page loads - angularjs

Question

I'm attempting to unit test some angular js controllers that I have written within the jasmine testing framework. I've got everything set up so that I am able to create instances of my controller, and pass in mock services.
However, I've got a few lines of code that run when the page loads.
$scope.tags = [];
$scope.noData = false;
$scope.generateSearchResults = function(input){
searchAPI.executeSearch(input).then(function(res){
$scope.tags = res.data;
});
};
//does some post processing on tags
$scope.checkNumberOfResults = function(){
if($scope.tags.length < 1){
$scope.noData = true;
}
}
//this is the code that runs when the page loads.. normally I want this behavior,
//but for my jasmine unit tests, I don't want the controller running any code on
//instantiation
$scope.$watch('$viewContentLoaded', function(){
$scope.searchQuery = $routeParams.query; //grabs from the url
$scope.generateSearchResults($scope.searchQuery){
.then(function(res){
$scope.checkNumberOfResults();
});
});
So if you can tell, when the page loads I want to grab a query string from the url and then display search results. The thing is, I don't want this code to be run while testing, at least not for my unit tests. Maybe when I do some integration tests I will want to be able to simulate a page load, but for now, I want to unit test some of my other functions in the controller without necessarily requiring a call to the search API service..
Does that make sense? Does anyone have any advice for where to go on this?

Answer 1

Instead of watching for the $viewContentLoaded event you could inject the searchQuery into your controller by using resolve of ngRoute or uiRouter. This allows you to mock the searchQuery in your tests and be independent of page loading and $routeParams
// code for ngRouter
...
controller: 'MyCtrl',
resolve: {
searchQuery: function ($route) {
// grabs search query from URL
return $route.current.params.query;
}
}
Then inject searchQuery into your controller:
module.controller('MyCtrl', function ($scope, searchQuery) {
$scope.$watch('searchQuery', function(newValue){
// ignore undefined etc.
if (!newValue) { return; }
$scope.generateSearchResults($scope.searchQuery){
.then(function(res){
$scope.checkNumberOfResults();
});
});
});