Testing Angular applications can be difficult because our front-end code depends almost entirely on back-end data, and setting up different database scenarios takes a lot of time and effort. Sometimes, we don’t even have enough data to test in the first place.
This is why I want to introduce Mockaroo. Mockaroo is a website where you can generate as much data as you want for testing purposes. So, for example, if you need 1,000 fake users with random email addresses, countries, and phone numbers, Mockaroo can generate all that. And you can even decide which percentage of data is left blank for each attribute.
In the example below, I decided that 10% of the email addresses would be blank:
Here is a quick JSON example I generated in a few seconds:
Mockaroo is powerful because it supports lots of different data types, such as:
- Phone numbers, age, credit card numbers, payment card types, bitcoin addresses…
- Street names, city names, countries, latitudes, longitudes, airport codes…
- Names, colors, job titles, genders, SSNs, EINs, university names…
And if you need a data type that Mockaroo doesn’t have, you can provide a regular expression that Mockaroo will use to create data that matches that regexp for you. Yes, it’s that good!
You can generate data in several formats (JSON, CSV, SQL, Firebase, and more) and then either use it as mocks in your Angular application (hardcoded object) or store the data in a test database that you would use for integration testing.
Using Mockaroo is free for exports of up to 1,000 rows. Still, there’s no limit on how many exports you run daily, so you could export more random data over and over again if you need more than 1,000 items, or you can use a paid plan to increase or remove all limits.
