Zombie.js "assert undefined" for multiple visits?

Question

I set up integration testing with Zombie.js and Mocha and run into a mysterious problem that seems successful only for the first call to browser.visit() . My specifications look like this:

 browser = new Browser site: "http://localhost:101010" describe '/docs', -> ['app', 'server', 'timetable', 'util'].forEach (file) -> describe "/#{file}.html", -> it "documents #{file}.coffee", (done) -> browser.visit "/docs/#{file}.html", -> browser.text('title').should.equal "#{file}.coffee" do done 

The first of these tests, which loads /docs/app.html , passes without incident. However, all subsequent tests fail to create a stacktrace, as shown below:

  ReferenceError: assert is not defined at Object.HTML5Parser.phases.inBody.startTagBody (/home/$USER/projects/timetable/node_modules/zombie/node_modules/html5/lib/html5/parser.js:1828:4) at Object.HTML5Parser.phases.base.processStartTag (/home/$USER/projects/timetable/node_modules/zombie/node_modules/html5/lib/html5/parser.js:65:40) at EventEmitter.Parser.do_token (/home/$USER/projects/timetable/node_modules/zombie/node_modules/html5/lib/html5/parser.js:2436:21) at EventEmitter.<anonymous> (/home/$USER/projects/timetable/node_modules/zombie/node_modules/html5/lib/html5/parser.js:2457:30) at EventEmitter.emit (events.js:117:20) at EventEmitter.emitToken (/home/$USER/projects/timetable/node_modules/zombie/node_modules/html5/lib/html5/tokenizer.js:99:9) at emit_current_token (/home/$USER/projects/timetable/node_modules/zombie/node_modules/html5/lib/html5/tokenizer.js:873:3) at tag_name_state (/home/$USER/projects/timetable/node_modules/zombie/node_modules/html5/lib/html5/tokenizer.js:400:4) at EventEmitter.<anonymous> (/home/$USER/projects/timetable/node_modules/zombie/node_modules/html5/lib/html5/tokenizer.js:941:10) at EventEmitter.emit (events.js:95:17) at EventEmitter.HTML5Tokenizer.pump (/home/$USER/projects/timetable/node_modules/zombie/node_modules/html5/lib/html5/tokenizer.js:932:11) at EventEmitter.HTML5Tokenizer.tokenize (/home/$USER/projects/timetable/node_modules/zombie/node_modules/html5/lib/html5/tokenizer.js:89:23) at EventEmitter.Parser.parse (/home/$USER/projects/timetable/node_modules/zombie/node_modules/html5/lib/html5/parser.js:2391:17) at HtmlToDom.appendHtmlToElement (/home/$USER/projects/timetable/node_modules/zombie/node_modules/jsdom/lib/jsdom/browser/htmltodom.js:91:50) at Object.innerHTML (/home/$USER/projects/timetable/node_modules/zombie/node_modules/jsdom/lib/jsdom/browser/index.js:481:17) at Object.core.HTMLDocument.write (/home/$USER/projects/timetable/node_modules/zombie/node_modules/jsdom/lib/jsdom/level2/html.js:406:22) at Object.exports.jsdom (/home/$USER/projects/timetable/node_modules/zombie/node_modules/jsdom/lib/jsdom.js:70:9) at History._createDocument (/home/$USER/projects/timetable/node_modules/zombie/lib/zombie/history.js:174:22) at /home/$USER/projects/timetable/node_modules/zombie/lib/zombie/history.js:126:30 at /home/$USER/projects/timetable/node_modules/zombie/lib/zombie/resources.js:147:16 at Request._callback (/home/$USER/projects/timetable/node_modules/zombie/lib/zombie/resources.js:335:16) at Request.self.callback (/home/$USER/projects/timetable/node_modules/zombie/node_modules/request/main.js:120:22) at Request.EventEmitter.emit (events.js:98:17) at Request.<anonymous> (/home/$USER/projects/timetable/node_modules/zombie/node_modules/request/main.js:633:16) at Request.EventEmitter.emit (events.js:95:17) at IncomingMessage.<anonymous> (/home/$USER/projects/timetable/node_modules/zombie/node_modules/request/main.js:595:14) at IncomingMessage.EventEmitter.emit (events.js:117:20) at _stream_readable.js:872:14 at process._tickCallback (node.js:415:13) 

Is Zombie browser.visit() not meant to be called more than once or is there some other problem here?

Editing for version notes:

• Node.js v0.10.1
• Mocha v1.8.1
• Chai v1.5.0
• Zombie.js v1.4.1

Answer 1

This seems to be a compatibility issue that occurs in Node versions> 0.10, as stated here: https://github.com/assaf/zombie/issues/487

The workaround mentioned in https://github.com/assaf/zombie/issues/487#issuecomment-15548684 solves my specific problem. I added the following code to my testi/common.coffee just before importing Zombie:

 do patchEventEmitterToHideMaxListenerWarning = -> return if global.eventEmitterPatched global.eventEmitterPatched = true events = require 'events' Old = events.EventEmitter events.EventEmitter = -> this.setMaxListeners(0) events.EventEmitter.prototype = Old.prototype 

Having done this, all my tests pass without complaint. I expect this issue to be fixed in future versions of Zombie, but at the moment the above hack makes it workable.