Nativescript-cli: On adding test frameworks their peerDependencies are not installed

[pkoleva]

Steps to reproduce:

1. Create app and add platform
2. tns test init --framework jasmine/mocha
3. tns test android/ios

Expected result: Tests are executes and results are shown
Actual result: Exception Error: Cannot find module 'jasmine-core'...

[Plamen5kov]

_Problem_

Only occurs when the user has installed globally npm version 3.x. The difference between npm 2.x and 3.x is that, npm 2.x installs all peer-dependencies of a package and npm 3.x does not.
Example: lets install the following package with package.json like:

{
  "name": "some-dependency",
  "version": "1.0.0",
  "peer-dependencies": {
    "peer-dep-1": "0.0.1"
  }
}

So if we do:
npm install some-dependency --save with npm 2.x, peer-dep-1 will be installed, but if we do the same with npm 3.x peer-dep-1 will not be installed. This happens, because npm 3.x does not install the peer-dependencies.

_Possible solutions_

• Forcefully install the peer dependencies of all packages when using tns init command. When doing it with npm 2.x, nothing will happen.
• Add missing peer dependency to tns init command (harder to maintain)
• fix in package (move from peer-dependency to dependency)

[petekanev]

@Plamen5kov how about leaving the responsibility of installing dev peer dependencies to the developer? Messages output by npm are verbose enough where peer dependencies are concerned.

[NickIliev]

related to https://github.com/NativeScript/nativescript-cli/issues/2212#issuecomment-263877510

[vakrilov]

I think that after seeing the message about the unmet peer dependency -its clear what you have to do. However, it would be great to update the docs with a note that you will have to manually add a dependency based on the testing framework you choose. It would help people who just follow the guide.

@Pip3r4o moving peer-dependecy to dependency is out of our reach, as it is the karma-jamine package that has the peer-dep.

[dtopuzov]

https://github.com/NativeScript/nativescript-cli/pull/2693 fix jasmin and qunit successfully, but you still need to manually install mocha.

[dtopuzov]

CLI is now adding peer dependencies, but the problem is that mocha is not longer peer dependency.
May be we should close the issue add some notes here:
https://docs.nativescript.org/tooling/testing#configure-your-project

[rosen-vladimirov]

I believe the $ tns test init command should provide a project that's ready for writing tests, without the need to install any dependencies additionally. We can improve our logic here:
https://github.com/NativeScript/nativescript-cli/blob/master/lib/commands/test-init.ts#L7-L9
https://github.com/NativeScript/nativescript-cli/blob/master/lib/commands/test-init.ts#L32-L33

To add the required depdendencies (as mocha).

[NickIliev]

The issue is still reproducible .. running

tns test init --framework mocha
tns test ios

is failing with

Error: Cannot find module 'mocha'