Duplicating tests for multiple form fields

So far, we’ve written a set of tests that fully define the firstName text field. Now, we want to add two more fields, which are essentially the same as the firstName field but with different id values and labels.

Before you reach for copy and paste, stop and think about the duplication you could be about to add to both your tests and your production code. We have six tests that define the first name. This means we would end up with 18 tests to define three fields. That’s a lot of tests without any kind of grouping or abstraction.

So, let’s do both – that is, group our tests and abstract out a function that generates our tests for us.

Nesting describe blocks

We can nest describe blocks to break similar tests up into logical contexts. We can invent a convention for how to name these describe blocks. Whereas the top level is named after the form itself, the second-level describe blocks are named after the...