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Comments on How to implement automatic text-to-link conversion in TypeScript?

Post

How to implement automatic text-to-link conversion in TypeScript?

+1
−2

I'm trying to create an automatic text-to-link conversion feature in a TypeScript application. The desired workflow is:

  1. Copy a URL to the clipboard
  2. Select some text
  3. Paste the URL - this should convert the selected text into a link pointing to the pasted URL

For example:

Selected text: "Click here"
Pasted URL: "https://www.example.com"

Returns: [Click here](https://www.example.com)

This allows easily creating links on the fly without typing Markdown syntax manually.

I tried implementing this in a TypeScript project with the following code:

let selectedText = '';

document.addEventListener('copy', e => {
  const selection = window.getSelection();
  if (selection) {
    selectedText = selection.toString();
  }
});

document.addEventListener('paste', e => {
  if (e.clipboardData) {
    const pasted = e.clipboardData.getData('text');
    if (isValidUrl(pasted)) {
      e.preventDefault();
      insertLink(selectedText, pasted);
    }
  }
});

function insertLink(text: string, url: string): void {
  document.execCommand('insertHTML', false, `[${text}](${url})`);
}

function isValidUrl(url: string): boolean {
  try {
    new URL(url);
    return true;
  } catch (err) {
    return false;
  }
}

To test this code, I set up a TypeScript project on Manjaro Linux and configured Jest for testing:

  1. Installed Node.js and npm using sudo pacman -S nodejs npm
  2. Created a new TS project
mkdir my-ts-project
cd my-ts-project
npm init -y
  1. Installed TypeScript with npm install --save-dev typescript
  2. Added a tsconfig.json file with npx tsc --init
  3. Installed Jest, ts-jest, and @types/jest packages with npm install --save-dev jest ts-jest @types/jest
  4. Added jest.config.js for configuration
module.exports = {
  preset: 'ts-jest',
  testEnvironment: 'node',
};
  1. Added test script to package.json
  2. Wrote the code in src/index.ts and test cases in src/index.test.ts
// src/index.test.ts

import { Clipboard } from './mocks/clipboard';

describe('copy handler', () => {

  it('copies selected text to clipboard', () => {

    const selectedText = 'hello';

    window.getSelection = () => {
      return {
        toString: () => selectedText  
      } as unknown as Selection;
    };

    document.addEventListener('copy', e => {
      if(e.clipboardData) {
        e.clipboardData.setData('text', selectedText); 
      }
    });

    document.dispatchEvent(new Event('copy'));

    expect(Clipboard.prototype.writeText).toHaveBeenCalledWith(selectedText);
  });

});

describe('paste handler', () => {

  it('inserts link on valid url paste', () => {

    const url = 'https://example.com';
    Clipboard.prototype.clipboardText = url;

    document.addEventListener('paste', e => {
      if(e.clipboardData) {
        const pasted = Clipboard.prototype.readText();
        if(isValidUrl(pasted)) {
          insertLink('text', pasted);
        }
      }
    });

    document.dispatchEvent(new Event('paste'));

    expect(insertLink).toHaveBeenCalledWith('text', url);
  });

});
// src/mocks/clipboard.ts

export class Clipboard {
  public static prototype = {
    writeText: jest.fn(),
    readText: jest.fn(),
    clipboardText: ''
  };
}
  1. Ran tests with npm test

However, when running npm test, I got some errors:

> test@1.0.0 test
> jest

 FAIL  src/index.test.ts
  ● Test suite failed to run

    src/index.test.ts:25:32 - error TS2339: Property 'writeText' does not exist on type 'Clipboard'.

    25     expect(Clipboard.prototype.writeText).toHaveBeenCalledWith(selectedText);
                                      ~~~~~~~~~
    src/index.test.ts:35:25 - error TS2339: Property 'clipboardText' does not exist on type 'Clipboard'.

    35     Clipboard.prototype.clipboardText = url;
                               ~~~~~~~~~~~~~
    src/index.test.ts:39:44 - error TS2339: Property 'readText' does not exist on type 'Clipboard'.

    39         const pasted = Clipboard.prototype.readText();
                                                  ~~~~~~~~

Test Suites: 1 failed, 1 total
Tests:       0 total
Snapshots:   0 total
Time:        2.056 s
Ran all test suites.

I want to write tests for:

  • empty clipboard
  • valid URL
  • invalid URL

How can I fix the errors and properly mock the clipboard in the tests?

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2 comment threads

Testing vs. Q&A (1 comment)
This technique is called ‘hijacking your users' paste function to do something they probably weren't ... (1 comment)
Testing vs. Q&A
Karl Knechtel‭ wrote over 1 year ago

"Would this be correct?" - Generally I don't think that this sort of thing forms the basis of a useful question for a Q&A site. Did you try the code? Does it give the results you expect? Does anything strange happen? It would be better to identify a concrete problem, if any, to ask about; otherwise, you already putatively know how to answer the previous question, and should post your code attempt as an answer. (Then, if there are problems with it, others can offer better answers, apply outdated/dangerous flags if appropriate, etc.)